Despite the Night (2015)

 

Director: Philippe Grandrieux

Screenplay: John-Henry Butterworth, Philippe Grandrieux, Bertrand Schefer and Rebecca Zlotowski

Cast: Kristian Marr as Lenz; Ariane Labed as Hélène; Roxane Mesquida as Lena; Paul Hamy as Louise; Johan Leysen as Vitali; Sam Louwyck as L'homme à la voix métallique; Aurélien Recoing as Paul

An Abstract List Candidate

 

To my surprise, a film by Philippe Grandrieux was released in the United Kingdom, on a regular old DVD from Matchbox Films, with few probably knowing the existence of this French filmmaker himself first. This is my first Grandrieux film too, to which I was however aware of him, spoken with an aura for a film like Sombre (1998) which, among the number of directors behind the New French Extreme film movement, was visually and tonally distinct. His work, in stills, is in the territory of the avant-garde or at least expressionist, visually driven work. He has sadly never been released at all in the United Kingdom baring a case like this.

Despite the Night exemplifies a distinct aesthetic which will be difficult to really describe even with screenshots. A lot of this narrative is set at night; extreme close-ups and characters in their own voids as a result like background, with rarely any long shots baring a few and a pronounced used of strong front lighting. Particularly with the scenes drawn out, the film two and a half hours long, Grandrieux's style in Despite the Night does suck you in, trap you into its world, especially as the plot does hold back from a lot of context and forces you to have catch snippets.

The plot itself is simple to digest. Lenz (Kristian Marr), a British musician, returns to France to find Madeleine; she is absent, so he finds himself with Hélène (Ariane Labed), a married woman who due to losing her son has fallen in a self-destructive sexual cycle. In this triangle you also have Lena (Roxane Mesquida), a singer who is in love with Lenz, and whose father she has a creepy almost incestuous relationship with and is a corrupt man of wealth, with the connections to allow him to make anyone disappear. Here is where the dichotomy lies, where this is a film whose director is talented but the material is of issue. Despite the Night feels of a figure that, since the nineties, has perfected a style entirely of his own, with content that is entirely distinct. One could fall on a comparison like David Lynch, but that barely if actually succeeds with telling of who Philippe Grandrieux is, who here makes a prolonged length drama that is yet oppressive in a subtle way, and moves into more transgressive material along the way. That transgressive material is where the issues lay.

Because on one hand, whilst nor reinventing the wheel, the genre clichés Grandrieux uses develop an eeriness entirely new due to the slow, ominous tone. Large portions have no score, but when music is used, it is striking. For large portions of the film, you do not even have clear grasp of locations even when he does shot with the rooms fully visible, sometimes never even going that far and telling a scene just in head shots and visual cues. One of the best scenes is the result of the later - the father of Lena, trying to buy off Lenz to get him to leave the country, with both shot only by the heads in darkened void, the only distinct aspect superimposed in being close ups of fish, evoking that you are in a room with a fish tank as the father talks of how fish are different from human beings because they cannot perceive their own mortality.

Some of the transgressive content even works in this light. There is a lot of female nudity, but he is an equal opportunist, and there is a scene where Lenz has to go past a recording of a porn film causally for a more important plot point, completely uncensored but coming off not as shock value but a banal event in the background. Even the weird incestuous nature between Lena and her father works as something more sinister then a cheap affect, such as a scene, in his arms, as she tells him a dream of sex between a man and her mother which she joins in, aroused by and unlike the scenarios you find in online porn actually icky with only the idea suggested. Where the problems lay with Despite the Night is when it attempts other darker material which comes off as hackneyed and bordering on the problematic.

It mostly surrounds the depiction of Hélène; actress Ariane Labed, who has worked with the likes of Yorgos Lanthimos on Alps (2011), is an actor clearly comfortable with nudity and more extreme scenes, but with a character of a woman with a self destructive sexual drive the figure is really questionable and clichéd to have just in this era the film was released let alone in time afterwards. The sense of sexuality having a grubby underbelly plays into old genre tropes which does not help either, as whilst the scenes of intimacy should be excised from what I am about to criticise, when this leads to a plot point, it turns into a more extreme version of a thriller plot twist from a US film. That there are those who kidnap women, strip them down to only a leather BDSM mask with only the mouth open, and take them into an underground car park to be shot, this sadly where Despite the Night turns to something utterly hokey even in the context of its style and tone.  

In fact, there is arguably an irony to all this in that this plot structure, and Labed being a semi recognisable actress in world cinema at the time, was likely an attempt to make the film more marketable from Grandrieux's other work, only to be undermined by those plot tropes added to make it more understandable. It is for less shock for the sake o fit to wonder through the porn shot, in one little scene, then for the scene of Hélène encountering an orgy in the park only to be molested by an older man, which is trite and uncomfortable in an unnecessary way. Despite the Night also dangles over the horror genre with some awkwardness as a result. A reference is made very early on to an amphetamine called Cannibal, meant to induce someone in the state to devour the nearest human being, which suggests a Chekov's Gun scenario of a moment going to transpire in the film but never does. This is a shame as, in the other scene which made it compelling, you do witness Grandrieux's clear power as a director in the one shot in the midst of all the gross clichés. In the underground car park, with a woman in the mask and a character forced to shot her, suddenly in the frenzy you cut to a powerful and horrifying image. It is close to Lynch in tone, but it is its own horrifying and unexplained image - a thing who-knows-what, barely registered but clearly made of meat and pieces, clearly alive, a metaphorical monstrosity of the breaking point before everything changes.

This, and other scenes, means Despite the Night will still linger. This film, my first from Philippe Grandrieux, has not put me off him as it shows so much of worth. It is clear that, from a director who worked at first in video installation and photography among other things, he is a person with something truly unique of his. Tragically, he is among those unique figures, mythical living gods of celluloid, whose work is never easily available in English speaking countries despite him being so unique, something you would presume would be sellable if difficult. It is a shame that, in the one you can grasp, as a French-Canadian co-production, you have to take the best with the less than stellar. It is a flawed production, one which if a positive can be found, still haunts me in spite of its compromises, open to his cinema more so now I have glimpse a piece of it.

Abstract Spectrum: Hazy/Ominous/Unsettling

Abstract Rating (High/Medium/Low/None): Low

Out-of-Print: Random Thoughts on How the Availability of Films Is a Detriment to Film Criticism

 

The following is an old piece I did in 21st September 2010 for an older blog, and in hindsight upon finding it again, it is worthy to actually dig this out and readapt it to the modern times, ten years later, with new notes. Interesting, despite my tastes in cinema arguably becoming more open minded, I was on the ball. Also with the existence of streaming ten years later, these words develop an unexpected and chilling poignancy even if the physical media era has grown into a golden era.

Nothing has been changed baring tidying it up for presentation, but thankfully there were not many.

*****

 

[Note - These are only half-baked ideas of mine which may be inaccurate and lacking details, but I have been musing over for some time]

Films viewers, with only myself and others I've encountered through podcasts and the internet to use as examples, have a tendency to return to certain films months or years later, including ones they first hated to re-evaluate them

Film criticism, even raking films on IMDB, for me is not in stasis, but continually changing.

Films improve or become more flawed on multiple viewings

That is not to say you cannot have an opinion on them on only one viewing, that is what makes up many of the reviews on my blog, but that does not mean we cannot re-evaluate films at a later time¹.

Age and experience may alter our opinions, while theories and articles on films may offer new perspective (the fascinating ideas about Quentin Tarantino's Inglourious Basterds (2009) from the likes of the Film Quarterly magazine has caused the film to become better and better for me²)

One should even evaluate the films they had despised; I have considered re-watching films I have hated such as Tarantino's Death Proof (2007), Paul Haggis' Crash (2005) and Baise-Moi (2001) - the third holding the title of the worst film I've seen despite seeing some of the most poorly produced schlock in my few years of film fandom - with the possibility that my views may alter³.

However, the availability of films completely undermines this. Unavailability or out-of-print is a foul word for a film fan, but I argue it completely undermines the ability to give an opinion on film. It is one of many, such as poorly produced DVDs (poor subtitles or dub only) and censorship (i.e. how am I, as a British national, able to properly review the notorious A Serbian Film (2010)⁴ when not only has it had around 4 minutes cut out, but those few minutes could alter my opinion on the film instantly?)

As films – as TV shows, short films and other visual media – disappear into obscurity and become out-of-print on DVD, it causes many problems. Not only in that each one of them could have become a gem or a masterpiece to individuals if they could find them, but the difficulty of finding them makes it difficult to be able to re-evaluate and critique them⁵.

For me, the obscurer films and the reviews and thoughts on them are far more fascinating than any other. With a few exceptions – such as the work of David Lynch – I have little interest in the countless books and articles on (for example) Citizen Kane (1941) even if I hold it as a near masterpiece. It is also detrimental to analysis of films that have the potential of being an underappreciated masterpiece, unless its obscurity leads to a mystique that drives people to search for it.

It even affects films that exist in cannons. Orson Welles himself is highly regarded, but many would have had to wait for a cinema screening or the release of his films on DVD (F For Fake (1973) was only released in the UK on DVD in 2007), and that does not take into account the ones that are completely unavailable such as Chimes At Midnight (1965). In the USA, as I write, you cannot even get The Magnificent Ambersons (1942) unless you import it from out the country. Another example is Jacques Rivette epic length Out 1 (1971). It has been show in cinema screenings at its full length, and through the internet one can find it through bit torrent, but there is still the fact that it is difficult to see it, despite being one of Rivette’s most acclaimed works, let alone watch it multiple times to see if one has any new thoughts about it. This also does not take into account films of lesser known directors, periods, and of countries and continents such as Africa⁶.

 

While we live in age where the internet gives us access (sometimes illegally) to these films and there are many ways to see lesser known works, they also can be a hindrance to being able to judge films with consideration especially in an environment of rapid consumption⁷.

 

*******

Notes from 2020:

1) Famously, Pauline Kael did not rewatch films as a critic. The issue I have found, however, is that even a film or work you are familiar with can suddenly develop new layers or even metamorphose as memory fades or you change as a person.

2) Unfortunately have no knowledge of what these articles were, but inevitably, I will look into them one day if I decided to cover that film.

3) As of December 2020, I have yet to return to Death Proof, but Grindhouse (2007), the project that film was originally part of, was finally made available as intended in the United Kingdom and was a fascinating piece. I have yet to return to Crash, somewhat dreading it truthfully. Baise-Moi is no longer the worst film I have ever seen, but a complicated yet admirable work which is very difficult to digest with understandable reasons. Baise-Moi is, as a result of this piece, a film to definitely return to with interest for me.

4) By 2020, I have yet to watch A Serbian Film in any form, partially because of this but also, honestly, my complete disinterest in the film in its reputation and notoriety.

5) This is becoming more poignant as I used my blog writing to do the equivalent of crate diving for music connosiors, skimming for obscure DVDs on the only existing rental companies or, with a lot, online as much is still unavailable to see. As with the VHS era, a lot will be lost in the standard DVD years only to be recovered a decade later at this rate, and a lot will possibly be lost to time unless you have people preserving it on future YouTubes. Streaming titles, not released on physical media, are in an even more precarious place ironically due to their lack of tangibility, despite it being meant to help democratise their availability, because the rights to titles are limited time and streaming sites like Quibi crumble to dust within even less than a year.  

6) Those Orson Welles titles are more freely available by 2020, mostly through Criterion, but that is not to say there are ultra-obscurities left in his career (including some due to legal reasons that are unavailable). Rivette's Out 1 has been made available to see, but there are many titles of his still in obscurities. The lack of African cinema, the continent let alone individual countries, is still an embarrassment sadly

7) The final note, the conclusion to this act of effectively re-reading my old work, revisiting an old title to see what has changed like a film rather than disposing of it, is beating a dead horse about that we need to treat films especially in physical media with more respect in its necessity. Truthfully though the bigger worth to revisiting this is that, like here, to revisit even the worst in culture again may reveal new angles to gain meaning from. My younger self, who likely had an inferior taste in cinema back than as I changed so much over these ten years, was at least with opinions I would agree with ten years later.

The Escapees (1981)

 

Director: Jean Rollin

Screenplay: Jean Rollin and Jacques Ralf

Cast: Laurence Dubas as Michelle; Christiane Coppé as Marie; Marianne Valiot as Sophie; Patrick Perrot as Pierrot; Louise Dhour as Mme Louise

Canon Fodder

 

Canon Fodder are reviews of films by figures or movements which do not qualify for the Abstract Reviews but are important for figures connected to those reviews, or from directors/figures I hold with great regard. Here, we have a tangent in Jean Rollin's career.

While I have softened to this film, The Escapees is definitely a flawed film, something to still truly admire but definitely not one you would immediately recommend to enter the French auteur's filmography, requiring context first even if you are a huge admire of it. It stands out considerably as Rollin making a drama. Not a genre film, but a production, whilst it has some eroticism and the ending involves some gore, where Rollin is trying to create a film without fantasy or horror elements. It comes from the eighties, which was a very unconventional period for him. After a decade of his trademark erotic-fantastique-horror movies, those that were made in the early eighties at least varied wildly in genre. Cronenbergian sci-fi horror in The Night of the Hunted (1980); the film serial/pulp pastiche made on an incredibly low budget The Sidewalks of Bangkok (1984); and Zombie Lake (1981), an infamous production which Rollin stepped into for good credit, a production even Jess Franco who was not shy of extremely limited resources skipped out of in the first place. In the midst of this The Escapees is a drastic change of pace even from those films.

The Escapees in question are two eighties year old girls at a mental asylum. Michelle (Laurence Dubas) has only just been brought back in, immediately hating her confinements when she catches the attention of Marie (Christiane Coppé). Virtually catatonic, baring rocking in a chair, this wakes Marie up for the first time in a long while, encouraging her to free Michelle and leading to the two escaping together. Michelle is a more brazen character, happy with her new found freedom, wishing to be with a man and also live whatever way she wants to, whilst Marie virtually tags on like a child. Marie out of two is definitely the most complicated and interesting of the pair; a very shy nervous figure, she comes from a privileged background Michelle did not, as later dialogues reveals, someone more than likely a victim of sexual molestation which has left her with greater psychological damage. Almost childlike or at least hyper nervous, following Michelle along and reacting when Marie is with others negatively, acting negatively especially when she is touched, only in a scene where she finds an ice rink at night, actress Coppé clearly trained with some skill in ice skating, does she feel briefly comfortable in her own skin.

The Escapees' biggest issue to digest it is that, attempting a more conventional structure without necessarily more plot and over a hundred minutes is that it is glacial. Very methodical to an extreme melancholic tone with largely dialogue scenes, what does grow and leave it nonetheless one of his warmest films is however the sincerity. His admirations are on full display. He admires "the theatre of the street", a quote taken by from one of the first people they encounter, Maurice of Maurice and His Exotic Dancers, with two West Indian female dancers performing at wasteland areas, such as a junkyard near railways. He admires outsiders in general - Sophie the dockworker, wearing a leather coat and cap like many of her colleagues, who is also a thief, and the staff of a bar that take in Marie and Michelle eventually. The film, without the more surreal or erotic content does open up a lot of his trademarks, including the sense of empathy he had for outsiders.

It feels odd seeing Rollin strip back so much and make a dramatic narrative. It does show that, for a subdued film, Rollin's work in general was always subdued next to outside Euro-cult directors of his era. Muted colours, very little very dated, and all-matter-of-fact; Rollin also knew how to find distinct locations to films at, such as his obsession with nautical culture which leads to a lot of coastal and dock based locations which are striking. He could figure out how to use the most banal locations of France to his advantage; little surreal touches are the result of this, like in how the leads meets Maurice and His Exotic Dancers it involves encountering one of the women playing drums in the middle of the wasteland between motorways. Also, even as his most grounded film, he still manages to have a scene of the leads finding a book of legends, befitting Rollin and his obsession with pulp, here just stories and escape the aspect he pays tribute to.

As a result, the ending of The Escapees especially becomes one of his most tragic, all going sour when the yuppies appear, including Brigitte Lahaie, and an ill advised decision to join two men and their girlfriends back home transpires, where they will try to pressure Marie and Michelle into sex, and there are real firearms and weapons on the wall as one of the men's collection from abroad to become involved. This is, honestly, one of the Rollin's weaker films, due to it trying to carry his style to drama, which does feel awkward. It does lead to a shock when the film does reach its ending, because of the sudden increase in violence and nudity, but at the same time the ending by itself helps the film considerably. It takes what has transpired before and given it worth due to the sadness of the material, finally making the experience something meaningful and worthy of Jean Rollin's filmography.

Blackenstein (1973)

 

Director: William A. Levey

Screenplay: Frank R. Saletri

Cast: John Hart as Dr. Stein; Ivory Stone as Dr. Winifred Walker; Joe De Sue as Eddie Turner (as Joe DeSue); Roosevelt Jackson as Malcomb; Andrea King as Eleanor; Nick Bolin as Bruno Stragor

A Night of a Thousand Horror (Movies) #205

 

Green haze looms over a Gothic mansion, turning into the title of Blackenstein, one of the most infamous films of the blaxploitation era. Consciously aware the representation of African-Americans onscreen is still at a place, when this review is written, that is fraught and in continual need of being emphasized, the blaxploitation era comes to me as a paradox, on one hand a needed moment of representation in front of and behind the camera, also however an era of white producers cashing in and the the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) protesting the movement for giving African-Americans a bad image. This paradox is something to consider the more films from this movement I see, but Blackenstein, among the horror subgenre within it, was still infamous as not being very good among these films. It has aspects of its era that stand out, which show its historical place. It also evokes, when we cut to a science lab in that mansion, when Ed Wood in the Tim Burton 1994 film on him, when he wanted on a set for Bride of the Monster (1955) a machine that produces sparks for his mad scientist set.

I did com to Blackenstein with surprisingly high expectations - the director helmed Hellgate (1989), a weird South African shot film - and the proper opening credits show promise, introducing Dr. Winifred Walker (Ivory Stone), leaving an airport set to a nice soul song. The premise, in its cheese, does promise a character drama bolted to a premise Ed Wood Jr. could have come up with. On one hand, Dr. Stein (John Hart) who owns the mansion looks a suspicious mad (white) scientist, the only Caucasian figure of prominence in the cast, who with the patients who live in his home dabbles in creating a youth serum that needs to be used every twelve hours, or a "RNA" formula with an unfortunate side effect of turning one's leg tiger orange with black stripes. On the other hand, he is not a villain however, wanting to help people including graft new limbs to those without, Winifred becoming his assistant explicitly to have him help her estranged fiancée Eddie (Joe De Sue). Eddie, a former Vietnam War vet, has had all his limbs blown off due to a landmine explosion, just one lyric away from the synopsis of Metallica's One¹.

It is set up as a melodrama instead, like an older horror film decades before, where his assistant Malcomb (Roosevelt Jackson), a deeply voiced man, has fallen in love with Winifred as they have worked together, but she is still in love with Eddie. To change things to his favour, Malcolm splices the chemicals used to attach new limbs to Eddie with the RNA serum, which causes primal throwback, as a voiceover during the scene he does this repeats over and over again, and turns Eddie into a mindless monster. On one hand, he becomes snazzy dresser in all black smart clothes, but on the other, his head is turned into the shape of a potato as a result as well as becoming bloodthirsty. It is from here Blackenstein was painful to sit through, as this drama gives way to scenes of Eddie stalking people killing them, all as dry as toast and at a snail's pace. Baring one character, a male hospital orderly who signalled his demise for mocking Vietnam vets and Eddie, no one after that is anyone of note, just random bystanders. Usually it is a terrible sign for me, in any horror film, where a monster exists that just chokes their victims to death. Blackenstein would have easily come from the fifties or even earlier; even when it has gore and animal organs used, the film has a tendency to immediately cut away from the attacks to their immediate aftermath, so you do not see a lot.

You do not see a lot anyway, as even restored, the night scenes of Eddie in the outside world are difficult to actually watch and get images of. Beyond this, you have a string of repetitious scenes of Eddie killing people, cutting to the other characters trying to figure out what is going on, which is all bland. There are touches of note, but not many. A creepy man trying to seduce a woman by touching her hair is a distinct scene of random victims, only because the film punishing her rather than him annoyingly. There is also a stand-up comedian talking about a talking dog in a bar, by accounts a real one named Andy C, a long tangent abruptly included for a joke which is not really funny, but is proven the most memorable and charming aspect after Blackenstein descends into this nadir.

Blackenstein even from that title sounds ridiculous, but I would have been fascinating to see a good film from this with this melodramatic pulp premise. One of its few virtues is that most of the cast, and people with important roles, are African Americans which at least remotely progressive, even if the film does indulge in gore and some lurid nudity for a cheesy plot. Even if the titular character is ridiculous to look at, the idea of an African American man being experimented on by a white scientist would be a loaded premise with some interest. [Major Spoiler] Even the ending, where Blackenstein is ripped to shreds by police dogs, has more uncomfortable in the modern day let alone before when it was made. [Spoilers End]. But, as always with bad horror cinema, when it is padded out or without lack of care it turns any premise, no matter how dumb, which had potential into something tedious.

 

==========

1) Yes, that song was based on Johnny Got His Gun, both the Dalton Trumbo 1939 novel to the 1971 film he also directed which the Metallica music video for One uses clips from. At the point of this review, I have never experienced either, so neither would be appropriate to reference.

Dracula's Fiancée (2002)

 

Director: Jean Rollin

Screenplay: Jean Rollin

Cast: Cyrille Gaudin as Isabelle; Jacques Orth as Le Professeur; Thomas Smith as Triboulet; Sandrine Thoquet as La Vampire; Magalie Madison as L'ogresse / La Folle; Brigitte Lahaie as La Louve; Thomas Desfossé as Dracula

A Night of a Thousand Horror (Movies) #204/An Abstract List Candidate

 

Late era Rollin - the films after this such as The Mask of Medusa (2009) up to his death are far more difficult to see sadly. Thankfully, Dracula's Fiancée still feels of his oeuvre, immediately when we start in a graveyard and a pale skinned vampiress with striking red hair awakens, and a vampire hunter with great hypnotic powers (and his younger male assistant) watches her from afar. What continues from this is work fed off pulp and the "fantastique", which Rollin has been much closer to even if his career is mostly slotted into the horror genre as here.

His narratives are not driven in the sense their narratives are not psychologically complex. Rollin's cinema is far more interesting when viewed not as horror in the traditional sense, but that these films feel like the cinematic equivalent of serialised storytelling, which progresses in sequences with evocative moments than necessarily leading somewhere from a progression. In this case, that the hunters are tracking down "parallels", figures of a supernatural form that can help them find Dracula, who is to be married to a mortal woman named Isabelle (Cyrille Gaudin), ordained to and having been kept safe for him by nuns who are being contaminated by her prescience, going mad as a result.

Like pulp narratives, different chapters bring their own sequences which link together, picking up more characters as we go along. The pleasure of storytelling in itself is part of his obsessions. He has complete sympathy for the macabre, where in spite of being technically the heroes, the two male hunters are for less sympathetic even next to the Ogress, a beautiful tall woman living in a cave who eats babies. His love of the macabre is found in all the distinct figures here - the nuns, the dwarf actor (first seen in a jester's costume) not defined for who he is but as a character in love with the red haired vampiress, even minor figures like a female violinist who makes her appearance (with her instrument) out of a casket. In general, whilst his cinema has had a lot of female nudity, and he has made adult films, the women are usually the strongest figures, distinct in their prescience. None so much as when Brigitte Lahaie appears, a regular of his career who, starting in adult films, he brought over to his work and gave a chance to. Here, making an entrance on a horse as the She-Wolf, her small role is awesome as a tribute to her.

He has a lot to work with in this film, just from the nuns themselves. It feels neither blasphemous either to elaborate on them, but that they are a whole group of quirky figures who add a lot to this particular film. Even when it comes to them smoking continually - pipes, cigars, an electronic crucifix one on the table for the Mother Superior which lights up and plays music - or when two are possible gay. They actually prove the more dominant characters of the cast than you would presume; figures still actually on the side of God, just more loosened up in their behaviour, even one of them being allowed by the Mother Superior to use a pagan Gypsy ward against evil, a dance ritual with its own costume. Including a taxidermied tiger in one scene among the film's many elaborate props (the kind you would find in antique stores), I was thinking more of Spanish filmmaker Pedro Almodóvar and Dark Habits (1983), his film about eccentric nuns who take drugs, write erotic literature and keep a pet tiger.

The timelessness of his material really helps with Rollin's filmography; even when set in the modern day, and showing that period where he made a film, he usually tackled gothic material which existed with less concern of aging aesthetic. Whilst of the 2000s, this still feels of his own timeless era due to his aesthetic obsessions, particularly with his use of gothic architecture, from castles to caves here, to characters dressed without excessively dated fashion. He was always contemporary, but out of step of fads, so his work has aged better. Even his flirting with modern science fiction or modernised horror work turns into The Night of the Hunted (1980), which was cold and septic like a David Cronenberg movie.

In terms of what Dracula's Fiancée feels like, his work is glacial. Rarely does he move the camera or have any elaborate filmmaking techniques, a solid hand instead. It is onscreen where he constructs, and his work is striking and was able to create iconic images on low budgets. His trademarks are here and still striking - he is obsessed with the coast and beaches, as much as with nautical culture, with the film eventually leading to Isabelle being taken by boat to an island, a location where the nuns there willingly sacrifice themselves to Dracula, the corpses washing up shore and "turning into spiders". Or that he has an obsession with people climbing out or in grandfather clocks, a door to alternative realms which is an inspired surrealist touch.

The images for the this films specifically are just as memorable, such as skeletons of bishops playing chess, the pieces opening a secret passage, or funny little touches like a nun wearing a funnel for a hat even in the mist of the final confrontation on a beach. A horror director not actually that fond of gore at all, even when he breaks that rule here, one of his gorier works at moments, it has a scene such as a woman carrying her own severed heart in her hands, a sequence where he breaks his own trademark with goof cause. It is not necessarily a film to begin with his career for the uninitiated, but neither did he succumb to the lack of power to his work either, neither feeling like a throwback to his older work as an older statesman either. As melancholic as his early films, the ending is effectively a tragedy, with characters trapped on a ship, but it does at least offer as well a harmonious conclusion for others at the same time in a different location out of time, leaving this with its entirely distinct personality.

Abstract Spectrum: Atmospheric

Abstract Rating (High/Medium/Low/None): None

Furious (1984)

 

Director: Tim Everitt and Tom Sartori

Screenplay: Tim Everitt and Tom Sartori

Cast: Simon Rhee as Simon; Arlene Montano as Kim Lee; Phillip Rhee as Master Chan; Howard Jackson as Howard; Mika Elkan as Mika the Sorcerer

An Abstract List Candidate

 

Travelling in a spiritual void can be dangerous. 

[Spoilers throughout...but this film is not the same experience reading as watching]

Befitting this bizarre curiosity, card tricks between the opening credits are the first images you see, following by men in pelts and costumes chasing a woman in the open countryside. What you get is a sluggish martial arts fight, all revolving around a tusk which can move on its own like a dowsing pointer. Furious however will grow in oddness as, after she is killed after being able to defend herself at first, we met the brother grieving over her, running a martial arts school for children who will fight the villains for payback for her death.

I cannot help but think of all the films like this from the seventies into the nineties, from the United States, which came from the growing interest in martial arts cinema from the East, especially Hong Kong, which could even cast Asian actors and people who were accomplished martial artists, even have Asian filmmakers involved. The ones I am thinking of however, from the boom and fascination with martial arts in American genre cinema, are however not the Enter the Dragons of the world but oddities, like Godfrey Ho's Undefeatable (1993), curiosities which befuddle, to which Furious stands out amongst stiff competition in this context. One factor that helps shape its personality, as was attested to by one of its own co-directors Tim Everitt¹, was a project by two film school students just wanting to make a film. A few years earlier, they would have made a slasher film, but at a time when that genre was bloated in product, they choose martial arts, had two accomplished figures in Simon and Philip Rhee at hand, Simon making a career as a bit actor but especially contributing to stunt work on major Hollywood films, Philip Rhee among his many hats also co-creating the Best of the Best series. With their students, the director-writers planned out a project with only ninety minutes worth of negative to work with, only six days to film (the seventh taken, by Everitt's account, because the Rhee brothers went to Tijuana to drink), and having to figure out what to do with such drastic limitations. I feel for good reason, as a result, a greater sympathy for Everitt and Tom Sartori, this experiment of theirs which managed to have something far more compelling as a result of having to work around these restrictions.

Virtually no dialogue is heard over twelve minutes, in a film less than eighty, a film improvised at first around a lead Simon (Simon Rhee), in his fetching red shirt, being moved on to revenge for the death of his sister, brought to a mysterious dojo who will help him in his quest. From the tone, a quarter of the length in, this film feels like a surreal minimalist martial arts movie as a result. You only learn the protagonist's name and the plot, past the twelve minute mark, at the dojo, likely to be corrupt or at least up to shady business dealings even if they are willing, including its master Chan (Philip Rhee), to help Simon in his revenge quest. The strangeness of the film is already exemplified by the dojo leader having an assistant who can do magic tricks, and the first inexplicable chicken of the film appearing, wandering on a blue carpet in a corridor.

The film works on its own logic, even if there is actually a plot to eventually grasp, the kind of film which does have a real dream logic where, immediately after, friends come to help Simon who we have never been introduced to, introducing themselves by shortly trying to fight him, only to get involved which a group dealing with fast food chicken, a truck full of crates of the poultry. The logic feels like a dream, in mind to its origins, a trip just to a restaurant leading to a fight where everyone just introduced being killed off barring Simon. The chickens become the film's spirit animal; the first on the blue carpet is almost something David Lynch would do as a joke in one of his sillier moments².

The fight scenes are not the best of the genre, yet these are actual martial artists you are seeing in Furious, in mind most of the cast were the Rhee brothers' dojo students, to the point that, alongside them being capable and some willing to fall off roofs, the difference being that the film does not have the speed and pace to it of Hong Kong cinema. It is closer to martial arts demonstrations being played out in sequences, including the proper use of weapons, from Sais to many people capable of using nunchucks, even in the case of Simon deflecting plates. Very little dialogue contrasts this, large portions beyond the music visually told between fight scenes, which is surreal in itself before you even get to touches like Simon seeing his slain friends' heads being served to him in a restaurant, only for them to turn into roast chickens.

Any dialogue also has a tendency to repeat, the same words over and over, be it the whispering Buddha statue in the mountains, to a scene that would be infamous if Furious was more well known, where after his revenge is apparently completed, the dojo master tells him on a beach to go home, repeated as he himself moves off further into the distance. It does gain the quality of a journey with its own logic, also involving collecting the pieces of a talisman, all in mind of all the abrupt tangents interjecting. In mind to its hasty origins, the creators managed a dream logic where the least expected does happen, taking you off guard, yet never fall away from its focus. Henchmen in white suits jam as a Devo-like New Wave band when not summoned to fight Simon, and the main henchmen in one scene is turning people into chickens, which gains a darker meaning when co-director Tim Everitt had it in mind that they were running a restaurant chain and cooking these transformed chickens to cover costs. This is not even considering how he also fires chickens at Simon as projectiles (by way of editing) as his special technique.

Furious also has, due to its origins, the virtue that it was shot with a lot more care than you presume for a film only shot on six days, actually with care to how it was made if improvised. The result means that it has one foot existing in logic, an understandable plot template, and the other in the irrational, able to wander off in delightful weirdness. Beside, martial arts cinema, especially from Hong Kong, can be weird so this fits among good company. For this film to have someone turn into a pig back a magical backfire, which also talks, is just among as weird or even weirder content you could just find in the Shaw Brothers productions. You could have had something much stranger than what you witness it Furious' finale, the final fight apparently in the caves of Mongolia and involving explosion sounds, smoke and the fighters bouncing off each other in an alternative reality, even an abrupt insert of a homemade giant dragonhead at one point. In this case, though, the experience of Furious is still bizarre, which makes that comparison, and that weirder likely exists, a huge compliment.

 

Abstract Spectrum: Eccentric/Minimalist/Psychotronic/Weird

Abstract Rating (High/Medium/Low/None): Medium

 

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1) Scarecrow Video, a holy temple of cinema with one of the largest collections of films to rent from VHS to Blu-Ray in the United States at least, briefly had a podcast which included an insightful interview with Tim Everitt less than thirty minutes which explained so much. That interview can be found HERE.

2) If you have seen On the Air (1992), a cancelled television show of his that lasted only seven episodes, he would do this with ducks instead which was just as strange.

Secret Ceremony (1968)

Director: Joseph Losey

Screenplay: George Tabori

Based on a short story by Marco Denevi

Cast: Elizabeth Taylor as Leonora; Mia Farrow as Cenci; Robert Mitchum as Albert; Peggy Ashcroft as Hannah; Pamela Brown as Hilda

Canon Fodder

 

Ducks don't drown.

Continuing with the curiosities to be found in the filmography of Joseph Losey, an American expat who spent his later career in Europe and Britain, Secret Ceremony offers the curious site of Elizabeth Taylor, the legendary Hollywood actress, on a red double-decker English bus, which is odd, or a prolonged scene of her eating breaking and even burping, images you would have likely not seen back in her American films of the fifties a mere decade earlier. All of this is in an opening of a very strange film, made when the moral guidelines of yore were collapsing and idiosyncratic dramas existed, here funded by Universal Pictures and made in England. All in which Taylor's stranger Leonora, a woman still grieving for a lost child, is pulled into the lavish home of Mia Farrow's Cenci, frail yet with striking blue eyes, the heir of a great fortune whose mother had died. In almost a permanent child-like state, she takes to Leonora as her mother, (with the photo used actually looking like Taylor herself), and Leonora being brought in to role-play this out.

The result is the film quickly turning into a psycho dramatic role-play, Leonora happy act this out and eventually developing a protective bond over Cenci, a figure of clear psychological problems left defenceless in an ornate and elaborately decorated home. This game of role-play lingers, of Leonora the mother and Cenci the doting daughter, but with Cenci the person very much in her own world in this scenario she brings Leonora into. Farrow's performance is also the most striking aspect of Secret Ceremony. Even among everyone else, even Roger Mitchum with a beard, she stands out despite the character potentially being seen as broad, even problematic, but with Farrow giving the performance everything she has got so it becomes credible. In mind that a) the character is meant to be a possible trauma victim of molestation, least near with Mitchum's stepfather character, and that b) a manipulative side slowly reveals itself as the film goes, she gives a performance so good this works with complexity. Even the more exaggerated details, such as the game of pretending she is pregnant in public with a stuffed toy up her dress, Farrow nonetheless makes this all credible.

In general Secret Ceremony is a curious and deeply eccentric film; Losey is not a director I would view as an auteur with a clear set of ideas, but he was a working director who was fascinated with filming psychological dramas from this to The Servant (1963), one of his most iconic films penned by playwright Harold Pinter, who between his odd tangents (a Hammer horror film, Modesty Blaise (1966)), was fascinated with character dramas where pieces of their personalities are peeled away to reveal more layers. This film though does have its own distinct touches, as I do not think you would have found Cenci's two aunts in the Pinter work, two women allowed a moment of sympathy of being sisters ignored by her mother, but still openly pocketing priceless objects and ornaments each time they visit out of greed with pure exaggeration to their characters, even the antique store they run and live in Leonora storms into.

The late sixties in general is distinct as, with the film codes for American cinema dissipating, a film like this is still staying away from explicit content but is so much more frank about topics like sexuality, to the point the film still has a potency even in the modern day, its age actually allowing it to catch one's expectations off-guard with its strength in ideas and drama than content. (All the cussing, barring the f-word being changed for feck, with a colourful assortment of English words used, adds as much to this). It is an odd film to have where Robert Mitchum, of the old studio system, also has to adapt to this era too as a creepy scholar/step father who is attracted to his step daughter, believing that incest is the banal result of the private property system. Yet like Taylor, and Losey their director too, he adapts to this perfectly, enough to be a mirror for his future work in the seventies.

The same goes for Elizabeth Taylor, someone if you were to look at the start of the sixties, with Cleopatra (1963), went through an era of such drastic change, by way of Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? (1966), which would force her to drastically change to keep up. In comparison Mia Farrow, who would gain her acclaim from Rosemary's Baby (1968), was a new actress in comparison to Taylor, someone who originated in the studio system and by this point, as that system would die out, went along (especially with Richard Burton) in a curious list of films. Joseph Losey would direct her again, and Burton, in one such baffling curiosity Boom! (1968), a notorious adaptation of a notorious Tennessee Williams play which would also never get made like it turned out decades later. And that this paragraph has referenced three films from the same year - Secret Ceremony itself, Boom!, and a film called Rosemary's Baby which is an iconic film of the new era of Hollywood cinema at the time and in American horror - which are so different to each other, really does emphasis how distinct and at times weird this period in Hollywood was, bearing in mind co-productions, and for the better.

The film itself, if anything, has taken advantage of the fact it would never get made again. Affectively a slow burning chamber piece, Secret Ceremony does have changes in location, especially at the coast in the finale act, but a large part of it is down to only three key actors (Farrow, Taylor, Mitchum) and a main location in Cenci's mansion, a location which is so distinct it adds to this film of psychological games and conflict. Even in terms of how Secret Ceremony resolves itself, the film takes the least expected directions, [Major Plot Spoilers] be it a major character committing suicide and Mitchum being abruptly knifed in the final scene [Spoilers End], leaving one on something memorable. So in terms of another Joseph Losey film, this does emphasise more how I want to see his films, growing fond of him due to productions like this. In terms of this period in American cinema, there are plenty of films like this I also really want to see more of now.

National Lampoon's Lost Reality 2 (2005)

 

Ephemeral Wave

$200 dollars for a tongue bath?

We return to National Lampoon and their sequel to the previous collection, fake unsold pilots for American reality television shows deemed inappropriate or bad to screen. In mind to the review for the last of these being incredibly long, let us cut to the chase and begin, aside from pointing out that this was made a year later, is a longer work in length with no bonus episodes, and that like last time a lot of the humour is dependent on shock or crass material. Trigger and Spoiler Warnings are needed too again as, whilst not as arguably severe as the prequel, this still has moments even to read of and picture that people may not like to consider...

Money returns as a segment, but in a turn where it is made by a rival company. Like last time, this premise is that money can compel a person to do anything, such as let a man spit chewed up food from his mouth into theirs, or a more perverse dare, none of which is anything remotely offensive. It is actually charmlessly charming, the homeless man involved, an old man named Frederick, still effectively the butt of the joke but with a sense the humour could have been so much meaner to him than before. Even if, for $500, the dare to have him urinate on someone does not actually do to plan, he at least had a moment for karmic revenge offered. When one person is dared to wear a dead squirrel on his head, a "road kill hat", it did however evoke in my past in secondary school where someone put a pigeon's head down the back of my neck. It did not thankfully evoke any trauma but a weird moment of passing sympathy for having dead animals around the head as I inexplicably can claim as a personal connection. The one moment which would be seen as problematic, the one dare by a female competitor where she pumps petrol into her car completely naked, is an issue that undercuts the segment, though for a moment clearly meant for titillation, there is a lot to unpackaged in general beyond this segment. Beyond wondering if anyone would dare a man to do this, there is a lot in it about the gaze (of all genders), why nudity would be seen as sexual only from a woman, the presentation of it, even that the woman herself (an actress or even someone off the street) was willing to do the scene, and all the complex emotions she clearly has in the midst of it including the possibly of regret after the camera stopped or, and a lot that is right to question, definitely not something this production would even have considered and is a complex moment in a very dumb production which needs to be considered.

The Amazing Racist returns from the previous Lost Reality as a segment, and it is not welcomed, with the titular figure a white guy insulting and offending minorities, here dressing up in a kimono, insulting anyone of Asian descent in a restaurant. One only hopes non-actors were not actually brought into this joke, such as with the chef offered a live dog because he is Chinese. Even if they sadly were not, most of the people just roll their eyes, the female masseurs in particular just finding him dumb in one sequence where he goes to a parlour. Sadly this segment, like in the prequel compilation, does return throughout, insulting Mexicans in the next. He is antagonising cooks to the point they throw tomatoes at him, rightly as he even endangers food hygiene by trying to have a siesta on a kitchen top or touching the food, and drives men wanting to work on the back of a pickup truck to the immigration offices as a joke. This later segment does, in rare time in Lost Reality 2, lead me to think of more meaningful things from the material, a reminder that whilst this was made in 2005, the relationship the United States has had with Mexico became much more of a political issue into the 2010s, making this unfortunately in its own way still relevant. These segments in general thought, throughout both Lost Reality works, baffled me in how this was deemed good enough material to return to the most, let alone that it's dancing over this touchy material has made it something many would find offensive regardless of taste.

Project Redlight, in which porn meets films students, has the later unexpectedly finding themselves having to film on a porn set. That they mock two male students is actually funny, but if the reviews of segments for this sequel feel significantly shorter, this is likely because not many of them, ironically, stick in spite of the first Lost Reality having been egregious at times to sit through, even in mind that Lost Reality 2 is much longer and, presumably, with more to work with. Beer Goggles though from that title is one not to look forwards to. Meant to be a Japanese show sold to the West, which adds a stereotype, it involves how much a man must drink to find women not deemed attractive so. It is crass, and back to the Japanese game show stereotype, it does not look the part either and is insulting; yes, I once saw, in my youth, clips of a show where poor Japanese contestants were forced to sit on cactus, but Japanese game shows have unfortunately been used as an excuse for a lot of jokes about the Japanese being weird when they are merely a piece of the culture, not even bothering to choose something which might be their type of material, usually with those aforementioned cactus or how Takashi's Castle, a show with Beat Takashi Kitano of all people the host of a show of usually painful obstacle courses, pushed athletic challenges where you could get hurt yourself rather than demean other people. Not helping either is the outro; for this sequel, rather than text, male comedians introduce and epilogue from each segment, most of them trying to be deliberately shocking with very little success, the joke about picking up women from the Battered Women Centre probably the first wince for me in the work by this point.

Scare Me is drunken college males trying to scare random people, running amuck in a bowling alley or at a cemetery, which is meant to look as obnoxious as possible, though it does raise a question of, depending on the target audience, what the target of ridicule is as, to be mean myself, I wonder if the target audience could be similar to these figures of ridicule here. In a similar vein of a work created by unlikable people, Lost Reality 2 then reminds one that, back in the mid-2000s, Bum Fights (2002) and its sequels was once a thing. Infamously a real work where people bribed real homeless men to fight and play a part in humiliating stunts, it was a controversial work which never was even allowed to be released in my country of the United Kingdom and got the creators, rightly, into legal proceedings for the sake of the homeless people involved, becoming something referred in popular culture for a tiny bit of time. Lifestyles of the Poor and the Homeless, parodying this, follows a similar series of humiliating and disgusting competitions for the homeless where the production are secretly going to only pay them a $1 dollar but lie that they will earn more. The question here admittedly is where the joke is - am I too soft hearted to find this dark humour funny, or is it just mean?

By Swing House, which has probably happened in an online show where couples are brought to a house to live together and have sex as swingers, even the introductions feel lazy by now in among the bad jokes and the anti-swinger mentality. A paradox is found too as the tantalising point is imaging a lot of naked beautiful women up to a lot of sex with other peoples' husbands, but suggesting that having a polyamorous and progressive sex life is a bad thing. Thankfully, you get immediately afterwards a quirky and odd segment which was entertaining. Discarded in the trash can according to its lore, Boner Boy is a man who is constantly happy but has a constant boner, probably a medical condition to have checked or is just one he has and has to live with, becoming almost like a ridiculous take on having a life effecting physical condition, one which never comes off as tasteless. It is a childish joke, but it is the more interesting premise throughout this as the titular guy is actually in a state of happiness few ever have. He is doing well, he has a beautiful girlfriend who loves him and, prominently, she does not bat an eyelid in the slightest at his condition, with everyone else taken aback by a comically large submarine in his tiny pants. As he goes to yoga or a tailors' store for trousers, it does not cause medical concerns to his day-to-day life which just adds to the humour. This, in its weird sweetness, playing with an immature joke but at no one's expense baring the people taken aback by him, is what I wished these Lost Reality projects were actually about, unless they bothered to make reality television parodies not for cheap shock jokes but to capture the medium and take the piss out of it.

Dumpster Dinners, following on, is also actually funny even if not laugh out loud hilarious, because for a short weird joke, of a reality cooking game show where chefs have to find leftover food in dumpster bins and re-cook it, hiding it as specials to see if customers will not notice, is again not for shock humour and actually entertaining as a strange joke segment. By this point, the realism of creating fake reality television shows has wavered now entirely, especially as most of these segments have not really come off as material in tone you would even try to sell to broadcast, let alone actually do. This would be the ultimate challenge mind as a chef, even in not hygienic and recommended to try, a reminder of how much food in real life is actually wasted. I do wonder if they got actual chefs for this, or what the leftovers were made of, if not real waste food, or if real customers were tricked into eating these dishes. Even if they look better cooked then you would think, it would probably be not recommended to try these aforementioned dishes unless you were willing to take the risk. It is funnier, rather than a crass un-PC joke, to imagine trying to sneak these dishes onto peoples' tables, strange gross humour which does not neither need the outros either to try to make them funnier.

Payback in contrast, whilst likely to be funny on paper, when acted out is not comfortable with even an amateur idea of how trauma can affect children, in which you have a show where parents get revenge on their children in mean pranks. With the production values in recreating reality television have fallen considerably, the premise is not funny in the least if you have a soul. It does include adult children, which is still cruel, including the abrupt twist ending of a father informing his son he is gay, but it is at least not as bad as traumatising a young girl, even if spoilt, by leaving her intentionally lost in a store looking for her parents. Make of that as you will reader.

Based on a Norwegian show, those presuming Europe is foreign with its own weird cultural habits, we again end up with the paradox of wanting to have scintillating female nudity and casual sex but feeling it has to be a joke, or something weird even to the masculine target audience this was sold too. Foreign Exchange Student has a Pakistani male student with a very sexually open family trying to seduce him. The only really interesting thing to actually say about this is that it is Pier Paolo Pasolini's Theorem (1968), in which a stranger seduces an entire family, if inverted, and yes that is a deeply out of place high minded film reference to try to crowbar into this material, only to try to have anything of worth to go with. M**get Wars does not help, as I am deliberately censoring that title, not because I will do all the time out of respect of any person with dwarfism, but because yes, it is tasteless to use that phrase, and the censorship is to deliberate emphases how Lost Reality 2 just dwindles in crud every time it gets to a passingly fun idea or two. Imagining American Gladiators, or the British show Gladiators, but where people with dwarfism compete is not inherently funny, actually with the potential to be profound as anyone could complete the games in this. The joke though, the gladiators the people with dwarfism, the competitors not and the basketball hoop for one game unfairly too high, is run into the ground to tastelessness. The outros really stink up the place with their more provocative, empty lines at this point as well.

Another Money segment thankfully helped the mood by now, in which we are introduced to Chewie Bravo, an attempt to replace Little Prince in the first Lost Reality; he cannot hold a candle to the later, but bless him he tries, particularly as nothing is spiteful in the money challenges involving him, such as carrying him over a street and back in 30 seconds, or eating a hotdog out of his arse crack, which is just evidence of how, men always taking the challenges, dumb men are. In that later case though, there is even bravery in its own way, in also willing to floss their teeth afterwards with one of Bravo's pubic hairs for additional dollars. It is not mean, cruel or aged badly, just ridiculous. This was the era of Jackass, the famous show of guys like Johnny Knoxville trying painful or dumb stunts themselves, and I would not be surprised that it would age a lot better in hindsight than the more politically incorrect and provocative comedy of the mid 2000s. Somehow, in knowledge to one infamous moment, where one of them inserted a toy car up their own anus for real, whilst not recommended, that act is probably more worthwhile than more Amazing Racist over the end credits, where he encouraging his son to throw things at a Mexican man selling oranges. A lot of the issue with Lost Reality is that, at the time, a lot of this humour was felt acceptable, and even into the 2010s, irony helped make it still apparently palatable when it was clearly not. I would not be surprised, if I went to something like Jackass, the show and the following films, as well as more work like this for contrast, the later is actually less likely to be funny than, as mentioned, a man willing to insert objects up himself as a sign of bravery and not involving anyone else baring a confused doctor.

When Lost Reality, both 1 and 2, just decided to be gross or silly there were actually things of worth; most of the time it was not, and having the hosts admit the work was terrible is just sidestepping of the material your production, created and co-produced by Scott Kalvert, willingly funded to make. Even encouraging people to send their own work in at the end, with an actual address, just feels a desperate sign of this as, notably, this did not involve The Jay & Tony Show, a duo of Jay Blumenfield and Tony Marsh behind real reality TV shows who worked on the first, even its own premise mostly abandoned by the end. The real mistakes of these two projects were that they were just lazy and ill thought-out jokes. For the little fun I did get, there was a lot of pain to endure too.

In Danger and Deep Distress, The Middleway Spells Certain Death (1974)

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