Mistress Frankenstein (2000)

 

Director: John Bacchus

Screenplay: John Bacchus, Joe Ned, John Paul Fedele and Michael Raso

Cast: Darian Caine as Helena Frankenstein; Heidi Christine as The Broadway Girl; Jessie Harcourt and Jade Duboir as the Housemaids; John Paul Fedele as Dr. Frankenstein; Bennigan Feeney as Igor; Michael R. Thomas as The Monster / Gypsy / The Burgomaster / Karl The Inspector; John Bacchus as Stable Boy / Hippie Couple / Father Karl; A.J. Khan as The Hooker; John Link as Karl The Jester; Kimbo as Himself

A Night of a Thousand Horror (Movies) #265 / Cinema of the Abstract Candidate

 

Frankenstein's Monster: Now the villagers with their torches, it's an incessant pain in the ass, I'm telling you.

Dr Frankenstein: What are you gonna do, it goes with the territory.

Frankensteins Monster: It goes with the territory...

Let us not kid ourselves with Mistress Frankenstein - from Seduction Cinema, creators of The Erotic Witch Project films, this is cinema meant to titillate a heterosexual male target audience, imaging women together in prolonged sex scenes padded out with a semblance of plot. It is crass, as a maid says to another if, "as a lesbian", whether she will be deflowered by the other, and it is not defendable. I am here, reviewing this, however to see what strange ways this New Jersey based company made these films in the late 1990s and early 2000s, structured around horror and genre structures, and by this point improvised to an extreme with an openly goofy tone.

And Mistress Frankenstein is weird. Set in an ill-defined time, clearly in the modern day but with a castle (behind CGI fog) that has the normal room decor of someone's house, the next heir of the Frankenstein lineage is a putz, whose wife Helena (Darian Caine) even before her death and resurrection was puritanical to anything remotely sensual. His tuxedo wearing servant Igor (a very flamboyant Bennigan Feeney) wishes he was more interested in twerking his nipples than the doomed attempt to get Helena's attention even when he brings her back to life, more so as, as a result of a new brain Igor acquired, she develops a greater interest in other women, whilst the locals, mostly all named Karl, will get wind of this and be the angry mob who acquire burning torches on-line on www.torch.com. This sounds far more complex than the film actually is, a film instead where a random fart and poo gag happens before the opening credits, in a very modern bathroom, for the sake of it. From director John Bacchus, who started with films like The Bloody Video Horror That Made Me Puke on My Aunt Gertrude (1989), this is openly silly, very cheaply made from Seduction Cinema, with all the silliest humour, even some Dad humour, you can get. I do not think this is even an insult, as there is something charming within this even as Mistress Frankenstein is not a film I can recommend to many. Those willing to experience it watch a film where everyone on camera helped pitch in on the production, as much as people behind the camera are likely on camera at some point, and this company managed to release a lot of these films at the 2000s and the early DVD market with the mentality of a merry band producing what they fancied.

Very improvised, if you watch the outtakes (included on the old DVD release) you see that this was made by a small group of people, likely the same people off-screen behind the cameras as is onscreen, improvising what makes them laugh as they made erotica scenes only involving women. As a result, here especially, you have a schism. Softcore with the curiosity, whilst I will not suggest feminist ideals with this film, that the women are openly sexual figures, whilst all the men, even when they watch and leer on the nudity and sex, are a bunch of goofballs, inept, get distracted taking a picture of their own erection, or getting their arms ripped off. The modern Dr. Frankenstein is an dorky figure, Igor, whilst a gay stereotype, at least sympathetic as he deserves more attention from a man whose relationship with his wife Helena was doomed even before her transformation, and the stable boy gets distracted by an attractive gypsy whilst her colleagues steal everything including a pair of bongos. Only the Frankenstein's Monster, already present, has some intelligence, liking milk and cookies, and throwing his lot with the gypsies when he catches one with the aforementioned bongos. All of this as I write this, creating sound sentences, does sound completely odd, more so as an ultra low budget production. I attempted to view The Erotic Witch Project as a fascinating, forgotten cultural item, which it is, but this from the future director of Bloodz vs. Wolvez (2006) feels now is part of a vast plain of cinema which, for many, is undefendable, yet is compelling for me as a border of how cinema can be different from what you expect.

And sometimes, this improvised cheaply made film managed something. Helena dies due to an unfortunate horse riding accident, and when I say "horse", the horse named Hilary was two people in a cheap two-person horse costume. The horse is shot by the stable boy upon Dr. Frankenstein's request, who blindfolds Helna and lets her ride on his back, only for her to strike her head barely in a tree, stuck there, and die instantly. That scene with the horse alone is why I have gotten interested in Seduction Cinema as, managing to get into Blockbusters and even British DVD rental stores like Global Video, you get bizarre moments like this. That shot specifically, of the stable boy shooting the horse, was legitimately funny regardless of context for how unexpected it is to witness. Among this reoccurring group of people who are in these films (director John Bacchus himself, who plays the stable boy among other roles, and actresses like Darian Caine to A.J. Khan), they let themselves indulge in their weird sense of humour, a world of its own where even Kimbo, the man in a gorilla suit who appeared in The Erotic Witch Project, is in this film in a cameo alongside a variety of other films by the company from this period with IMDB credit.

The sex scenes are long - trying to watch this not for titillation is ridiculous in itself. Scored to porn elevator vaporwave music with a lot of saxophone, the film has a lot of sex, with some scenes in-between, and where the interest lies for me is what ties them together in a format, before the internet became fully usable by many and porn clips could just be downloaded that excised this. There are very time dated references to being "2k complaint", prop nipple clamps are two wooden laundry pegs connected with tinfoil, and a brain is acquired from Clive's Body Shop, where you learn a politician's brain is cheap and difficult to sell off. Possibly indebted a little to Frankenhooker (1990), Frank Henenlotter's cult film from New York City, Darian Crane's Helena post resurrection shuffles along, in a mini skirt and tube top, to be with as many women as she can, the hotel room always used clearly informing the viewer most of this film is shot in one person's house.

In context, all of this is peculiar, where most will be frustrated with its randomness or the length of the sex scenes. It barely attempts a plot, one which never leads to anywhere as a jester, a random very hairy man is costume, appears at Dr. Frankenstein's window, in his very modern garden, spying at his resurrection of his wife and lets the Burgomaster be aware of this. I think it says a lot of this film where, as erotica meant to sell, the end credits sequence is Kimbo the gorilla playing at a keyboard in a hall as the Jester goes into a long monologue, involving his seed, as Frankenstein's Monster ballroom dances with a woman. This is bizarre, and this would have been on a rental stand in Global Video in my country, as it got a release in the British DVD market, all because there was a time where an audience wanting titillation existed for the new DVD format. A group such as Seduction Cinema could fill that market whilst doing whatever they thought would be funny.

This is more so the case as, not trying to parody the template of a film such as The Blair Witch Project (1999), this feels less inhibited, with a scene or two with a sitcom laugh track, to eco hippy parodies appearing for a scene, complaining of Dr. Frankenstein's environment harm let alone playing God, for a joke. Including the scene transitions, of peoples' heads spinning against a super imposed rainbow, this clearly knows it is eccentric and working with very little. Again, caution is advised against something like this being watched by anyone even if you do not factor in that erotic content, as that is a subjective thing dependent on the viewer. More an issue in this case is that Mistress Frankenstein would put people off for how cheap and how openly ridiculous it is, barely strung together and aware of this. It does not feel ironic either, but made as much in pleasing itself as it does to fit a market.

Even for that market, which exists into the modern day even with hardcore pornography available, this had the creative decision for one of its last scenes to have an epilepsy inducing threesome, set to black with the image flashing in and out, with moans repeated almost a cappella in rhythm to the music, which does raise questions of films like this even fitting the softcore market as suitable licenses. Especially as the early 2000s is a territory still open to consider, this, like any other outsider cinema, is going to be more interesting to view as a snapshot of the era. Less because they are good films but to imagine what they represent of the era, shot within weeks with the fashions and items at hand. That, and how, like an old Something Weird Video release for a decade before, I have found myself with Seduction Video films getting increasingly stranger the few I have seen, and this is bonkers to say the least when I did not expect this level of eccentricity.

Abstract Spectrum: Eccentric/Haphazard/Psychotronic/Weird

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

Gaming of the Abstract: Cinderella Escape 2 Revenge (2017)

 

Publisher: Hajime Doujin Circle

Developer: Hajime Doujin Circle

Single Player

PC (Steam)

 

This review contains plot spoilers for this game and Cinderella Escape R12 (2015).

I will preference this review admitting what this is, that it is as much a very low budget, independently made 3D beat 'em up made as much as a game with fetishes as its genre of choice. Created by Hajime Doujin Circle, a one person company by a Taiwanese figure Hajime who began this series with the prequel as a 3D puzzle game, imagining a world where Cinderella from the ancient wells of fairy tales is in fact imprisoned under false accusations of murdering a king. Dying as a result of the prequel's true ending, the sequel jumped genres into being a scrolling beat 'em up, resurrected by her (2D) fairy godmother and trying to prove her innocence.

It is a fetish game as, in mind to the fact Valve's Steam service allows porn games for sale on there, this had a free R18 patch from the developer you had to download from their Patreon account, which allowed topless nudity. You can literally kick people so hard in the pre-existing, non-patched version that their clothes explode down to their underwear and alongside the explicit BDSM slant with the clothes worn by enemies, and the costumes you acquire for Cinderella, you have in the outfit changing/buying menu a bar to toggle her breast size. What led to me wanting to play the game however was when, learning of this through video content by a videogame commentator Matt "McMuscles", a Canadian videogame enthusiast with an interest in documenting fighting games especially. I was enticed by the premise beyond the fetish content. That, even on a low budget, this is an adult fairy tale with an interesting central mechanic in the centre - that Cinderella, still stuck in a cursed arm restraint even after death and resurrection, has to rely entirely on kicks and flipping in the air to get through opponents. You can turn this aesthetic detail off, with the animation changed, but it ruins the littlest of things which could have the potential to be rewarding, even be expanded. That, whilst it would be a niche title to sell, is a beat 'em up entirely with a distinct fighting style of aerial flips and kicks, without punches, matched by an aesthetic style that is also of interest. I will go ahead and say despite the issues with the game, I would not mind a Cinderella Escape game where, toning some things down, would be an adult fairy tale beat em up with this mechanic explored further.

Here I also admit the fact, as a PlayStation One and Two player growing up, I have a thing for even the cheapest of beat em ups. Not one-on-one fighting games, but a genre which was coming back into popularity in the 2010s of levels you traverse with a fighting game arsenal of moves, with Matt McMuscles himself contributing to a throwback game called The TakeOver (2016)¹, and in the midst of the first two Playstations was an era of smaller video game companies from Japan, and other regions, churning out lower budget games. The beat 'em up is one genre that came up a lot in that era, even if many did not get a Western release or I never got to from those released. One thing this genre has the potential to provide is that, alongside the fact you produce a few open levels, a character with a range of moves, and a few enemies, even if the time and resources are still needed, the efficiency of the mechanics means that you can add a variety of creative looks and styles to said genre mechanics. Cinderella Escape 2 Revenge is a low budget child of theirs from the era of Unity, the game engine which this was produced on. Even if these games have a potential of being repetitive, which will have to be addressed with Cinderella, they had an addictive quality for me and this was the same.

I say this not to insult Cinderella Escape 2 but warn that, due to its limited resources as a production self produced by Hajime Doujin Circle, and crowd funded, this game exists as a solidly made work in context but also very minimal in content due to the restrictions at hand. This could only expand beyond what we have here - more locations, more enemies, more moves beyond the few and the one special Cinderella has - if you had more resources, funding and time. Hajime Doujin Circle still tried with what they had here, which is the great note, as for a game which brazenly has a thing for dominatrix underwear on the female enemies, it invests in a tone and a narrative which is idiosyncratic for this type of production.

It has a serious narrative in the midst of itself in fact, in the Story Mode, of artificially made living dolls who, in this fairy tale world, are a lower class with incidents of them going on rampage causing further biases against them. The game is tackling a subject which is heavy  handed, and comes with things in its attempt to be dealt with that could be read in really awkward ways, but it is ambitious even for this game to try this. Even if the game is meant as much for titillation, it is trying to tackle subjects like racism and persecution, as one of the side characters Snow White, here a Goth Lolita, is in love with a doll, which is pretty ambitious. Even the main villain Pinocchio, a doll who has found a way to become human, has a tragic back-story with the witch character that helps Cinderella out. Told in in-game cut scenes, only the knowledge that, as you can buy new clothes for Cinderella, she will be dressed in whatever she has, or can end up in just her underwear because of how the game's fighting works, adds an air of absurdity to a sincerely told tale.

Even the light hearted aspects - the fourth wall breaking joke of the Fairy Godmother being 2D, that Cinderella is a ditz, one who when everyone presumes her to be a mythical fighter whose bound arms allow her to train to become more powerful, and goes along with it - feels like a premise that, on one side selling sex, is however on the other stretching against its restrictions, that contrast actually leading this to be a compelling premise to expand on. This game will still put people off, from the toggle to expand the lead's breasts to BDSM traps you occasionally encounter against the bosses. It is, due to how much was possible, still stuck with repetitious content too. What was created is solid in context, but Cinderella herself only has a few (if very flashy) moves, the one special thankfully insanely elaborate, spinning on one leg in pirouettes which would make a ballerina blanche, whilst the flips in the air with the basic moves are appropriately over-the-top. The limitations mean, alongside the locations per level being only a couple, you have limited enemies too.

Baring the camera, which is potentially fiddly, the game is fluid, Cinderella practically homing on opponents especially with the slide button. Challenge is found in enemies with long range or special attacks, which in a choice I praise the creators for, have visual prompts onscreen to help warn of ahead of time. In one case, when you are beating up the Seven Dwarves in a bar, because Snow White refuses to come back to her Queen mother, I legitimately had something memorable here early on which emphasised why I find this premise has more potential in it, something you could have elaborated on in a larger scale game, in this small tavern room brawl as their do charge rolls and fire projectiles. Even the whole idea of kicking a villain so hard their clothes explode off is a mechanic as, alongside being equal opportunity with males in their tighty whities, it is designed to leave something vulnerable to more damage. It is a mechanic that gets lost as Cinderella gets more powerful, but it is interesting to see even a fetishishtic aspect become part of the game, especially as Cinderella herself is in danger of this too. (Even the clothes and accessories, which you earn coins to buy, increase stats as you buy them in bulk).

Even the kinkiness of the game is less an issue than in terms of interpretation. Even as a heterosexual cis-male wary to not just presume a defence for such content, I have however become more wary of the concept of the "male gaze" because the notion of the gaze is more complex nowadays. More female gamers are recognised, as are more non-heterosexual gamers and more awareness of sexual desires being more complex, which really forces one to re-think the image of Cinderella here in leather fetish gear beyond just presuming it is objectifying, knowing full well that depending on the viewer, they themselves as a non cis-male gamer may be offended, may roll their eyes, may actually enjoy the game, or may even cosplay and/or draw illustrations of this character. Even if this is obscure choice for the later examples, we cannot presume everyone equates the same opinion, and I think more an issue here was the linking of violence is a bigger issue, if only because, whilst still very tame here, this does not have the major aspect of BDSM that you have the pre- and post- interactions with those involved in the role-play.  

If this game got rebooted, than you could find a way to keep its BDSM content, and tone some content down and increase others, especially if you brought in non-heterosexual male voices. This is the kind of game, just imagining if you ran with the kinkiness, you could still have as lewd in a crowd pleasing way, for many, even if you have a limited audience. Here as well some of it is in-game would have to be worked with mechanically, the traps here especially whilst eyebrow raising in the boss battles, from "Spanish horses" to chain jungles, they are, escaped through button mashing, annoying at times when the bosses will just spam them with shields up. If you find tuned everything the potential is rife for a lot of playfulness with fairy tales as a form if the aesthetic can be all inclusive and emphasised the humour more. Be it Three Buff Pigs, to a Snow Queen boss with Snow Bunnies and Frost Gimps, a humour and playful sexuality could be run with if you had more resources.

The story mode is slight, able to be played under two hours, and there are "Quests", challenges to increase your levels and earn coins for coins, though the later raising the potential issue of repetition with the resources the game has. Nonetheless, I found this game entertaining, and whilst it may seem ridiculous, honestly, to come to a game like this which is about the "fan service", the content which is meant to be erotic, and be far more interested in the skeleton of the premise and mechanics, that was what happened and what left a lasting impression. The optimist in me, if this ever got a reboot where anything was possible in ambition, would be interesting as we have had many adult fairy tales in a variety of medium and suitable audiences, including videogames, and one based on the fight mechanics and tone here with some content rearranged could work. Something like this which has some of this erotic content but is also more interested in other content feels like it could become something really memorable.

 

========

1) As referred HERE.

Dracula vs. Frankenstein (1971)

 

Director: Al Adamson

Screenplay: William Pugsley and Samuel M. Sherman

Cast: Lon Chaney, Jr. as Groton; J. Carrol Naish as Dr. Durea/Dr. Frankenstein; Zandor Vorkov as Count Dracula; John Bloom as the Frankenstein Monster; Jim Davis as Sergeant Martin; Regina Carrol as Judith Fontaine; Russ Tamblyn as Rico; Anthony Eisley as Mike Howard; Anne Morrell as Samantha; Maria Lease as Joanie Fontaine; Angelo Rossitto as Grazbo

A Night of a Thousand Horror (Movies) #264

It's like Dial-a-Prayer on the telephone.

You can see Al Adamson as a filmmaker in one film. As documented in Blood & Flesh: The Reel Life and Ghastly Death of Al Adamson (2019), he started off with a thriller with a female singer to promote. This film did not sell, was re-cut as Psycho A-Go-Go (1965) with scintillating go-go dancers. Again, this does not sell, so it is re-cut again into The Fiend with the Electronic Brain (1969), and then again as Blood of Ghastly Horror (1971), becoming a horror film with zombies and John Carradine. This is an apt prologue for Dracula vs. Frankenstein as, before you point out even this was recut too for its final version, Al Adamson was once someone I saw an occasional film by (Jessie's Girl (1975) on an obscure satellite channel, Black Samurai (1977) on Amazon Prime), someone with a notoriety but not a figure I thought of baring he made quite a few films in exploitation cinema. He was someone who worked and worked, trying to keep up with the trends of the era, even if his work had to be re-cut, and even trying to make a children's film, Carnival Magic (1983), even if considered lost for a long time afterwards.

Blood & Flesh, connected to a large scale restoration of his work by Severin Films in 2020, has to try to compact a lot, which is always an issue with cult film documentaries, but it offers a great diving board into Al Adamson as a filmmaker. His tale has sadly become infamous for the tragic ending, a filmmaker who was murdered and buried where the Jacuzzi was in his own home, but Adamson's career is fascinating and bizarre even if this had never happened for how, in the golden era of exploitation cinema in the sixties and seventies, he managed to cross with so many people, so many genres that came about, and even crossed paths with Charles Manson and the Manson family when he shot on Spahn Ranch. He is a text book example where auteurism as a concept does not always work as it should, as his films were made to entertain, and his reputation has been low for many, but he has a trademarks with his reoccurring casts, and his life and how his films came to be really add so much to the material itself onscreen.

Films like Dracula Vs. Frankenstein are divisive - I can think of the text on American regional horror films, Nightmare USA by Stephen Thrower, and how he buries the Al Adamson films (and Adamson himself) in those which exist in the period he covers - and I will be honest in saying, despite being a film where Jim Kelly fights an actual vulture, I thought Black Samurai when I saw it, as a Marc Olden novel adaptation in the Blaxploitation era, as tedious to sit through. Adamson as I get into cinema's outside world however is a curious outlaw, apt for the son of a New Zealand cowboy who, successful as a silent film western star, strove to be entirely independent with his films and, when his son stated making films as an independent, would star in his son's films as the cinematographer could. One thing Blood & Flesh highlights, in terms of an auteurist viewpoint, is that whilst the films were not necessarily of ideas of his, his work with his crews influences them. This can include staff being onscreen as much as in the back, his love and wife Regina Carrol in roles as in Dracula vs. Frankenstein, and a gamut of unexpected figures, those like Lon Chaney Jr. as aging film stars of the past, Russ Tamblyn of West Side Story (1961), who was an outsider soon after that film, and here even the stockbroker Roger Engel under the name Zandor Vorkov as Dracula.

The irony is knowing, according to Blood & Flesh, that Al Adamson's favourite films were musicals, and before I could imagine what an Al Adamson musical looked like, as a man who made films in other genres, he did make a musical and it was called Cinderella 2000 (1977), which even for me would to be something to be seen to be believed. Regardless of what you think of Dracula Vs. Frankenstein too, his career is also affected by the fact, even in the drive-in era where films were churned out, he struggled and was stuck in limbo with films shelves and constantly re-cut to try to sell them. Dracula Vs. Frankenstein, as mentioned, was an example, where those titular titans were not even in the original form, originally a tale of a mad doctor, played by Hollywood actor J. Carrol Naish near the end of his life, who out of a carnival exhibit in a coastal fair is experimenting on the resurrection and rejuvenation of human flesh, even if it means drugging the docile Lon Chaney Jr to a state of being kill-crazy, with an axe ready for decapitating a woman who with be put back together by Naish afterwards.

Unable to be sold, the film was changed with new footage, in this case introducing Dracula as interpreted by "Zandor Vorkov", who having acquired the puffy faced decayed corpse of Frankenstein's Monster, comes to Naish, the last heir of the Frankenstein family, to cut a deal to benefit each other. This all feels disjointed before anyone in the readership asks about this to himself or herself, this titular plot sequence bolted onto a work which would have structurally made more sense in its original form. That original narrative has a singer (Regina Carrol), after a musical number from an era before, searching for her missing sister at the fair Naish is. Dracula and the Frankenstein's monster, until the final act, are barely in the film, to the point that whilst there is an attempt to write Dracula into the narrative, the monster has no point baring one or two rampage sequences.

Considering that the film instead has a tangent into a guy named Mike, an older guy living on the beach with a shark tooth necklace, as a romantic lead and even some snapshot of the early seventies hippy movement, with demonstration footage and even a pair of hippies wanting to go to one in dialogue regardless of what it is for, I can see why Al Adamson gained the notoriety he did. His film here, regardless if it works, tries to be an entertaining film in spite of logical holes, and can wander off into tangents of he would rather be doing, especially anything with the love of his life Regina Carrol can be the centre of. The lengthy musical number in which she is introduced now makes so much sense knowing his tastes, his habit to cram in recognisable stars of the past (and a still young Russ Tamblyn as a sexually violent possessive biker) into the film causes more tangents happen.

With the only connective tissue being Naish's doctor apparently needing "donors" to feel feat to extract what he needs for his resurrection serum, the film as a result of its structure is a facsimile of a narrative, tropes floating between its stunt casting and what Adamson felt was interesting. This is where he gets interesting however, where even if he has a habit of making very slowly paced genre films means Dracula Vs. Frankenstein is frankly a mess, he nonetheless created films vibrant with who crossed his path and how this plays onscreen¹. The figures that appear onscreen bring so much to the material. Lon Chaney Jr., not talking at all and having throat cancer, still is dynamic with his facial features. J. Carrol Naish is clearly reading lines off-screen with cue cards at points, and yet is stil dynamic as a figure of classic Hollywood, and it shows an accidental progressiveness, for all his questionable choices, that Adamson cast him regardless of that fact he was wheelchair bond. The same goes for Angelo Rossitto, famous for films like Tod Browning's Freaks (1932) and Scared to Death (1947), who is cast as a carnival show barker helping Naish. Considering Scared to Death played off Rossitto's dwarfism as a demonising factor, in a film with Bela Lugosi, this also feels more progressive as, even if playing a villain, here he is spry and energetic for a man, feeling younger than his sixty plus years, who gets a lot of time onscreen, even pulling out a trick of eating money.

In mind to this film's convoluted origins, it does require an appreciation of a film like Dracula Vs. Frankenstein beyond its base form, of its creators and a willingness to find amusement, not irony, in when this film does waver. If you cannot, this sis not recommended seeing. If you can, as I am slowly becoming to appreciate in films like this, this was a very entertaining film. As I come to view films less in terms of standard forms of "quality", whilst that is important for some of the best ever made, but as constructs of the people behind them, Al Adamson is going to be of interest. He is going to have one potential barrier in that he wanted to make "entertaining" genre films, which means we are less likely to have the personal obsessions with the likes of a Jesus Franco or an Andy Milligan, but a film this notorious wins me over for the people who appear in it, its context of why everyone is there, and letting the film wander on in its mad world.

 

========

1) As well as off-screen influencing onscreen too. Adamson had Vilmos Zsigmond, the legendary cinematographer, on Psycho A-Go-Go, as a Hungarian exile needing to find work early in his American career, and László Kovács on The Fakers, before it became the biker film Hell's Blood Devils (1970). Kovács, alongside the legacy of Easy Rider (1969) which he worked on, and was a film that helped other Adamson biker films be sold on, would cross paths between as eclectic as people as Adamson, Steven Spielberg on Close Encounters of the Third Kind (1977) (which Zsigmond worked on), and Colonel Sanders, the founder of Kentucky Fried Chicken, when it was not the mega business, who appeared onscreen in Hell's Bloody Devils as he did in a Herschell Gordon Lewis film from the exploitation film era.

Freddy's Dead: The Final Nightmare (1991)

 

Director: Rachel Talalay

Screenplay: Michael De Luca

Cast: Robert Englund as Freddy Krueger; Lisa Zane as Maggie Burroughs; Shon Greenblatt as John Doe; Lezlie Deane as Tracy; Ricky Dean Logan as Carlos; Breckin Meyer as Spencer; Yaphet Kotto as Doc

A Night of a Thousand Horror (Movies) Re-Review

 

Now I'm playing with power!

I wanted to view Freddy's Dead out of context of the Nightmare on Elm Street franchise. No original film, no other sequels to compare to, just looking at Freddy's Dead as the infamous film of the original horror franchise. Even Part 2, Freddy's Revenge (1985), has had a re-evaluation of its blatant and credible gay subtext. Here, as well, I wanted to look at the one film from the series helmed by a woman, Rachel Talalay, whose involvement with the franchise and New Line Cinema would have made her a great choice to step in to finish off this franchise in any role. At first, quoting Friedrich Nietzsche, than Freddy Krueger himself in a parody of the franchise's use of opening credit quotations, it was clear that this would be a goofier and irrelevant send off to a figure who, by this point, became a pop cultural star despite being a fictional child killer. In context, Freddy's Dead alongside being the result of this strange cultural cache the films have, despite that icky paradox, was always bolstered by context for me. When binging the franchise beforehand, where I even have a soft spot for Part 5, it could be defended as the necessary evil to heighten the plot of Wes Craven's New Nightmare (1994), a fourth wall breaking but serious reinterpretation by series creator Craven, where the sillier sequels are talked of in the film as part of the "real" people becoming involved, with Krueger being a "real" character mythologized in these films to prevent him crossing over into the real world.

It however is established, when Freddy Krueger is introduced parodying the Wicked Witch of the West of The Wizard of Oz (1939), in a witch's hat and riding a broomstick, that this is no longer a scary figure but a comedic antihero. The tone of the comedy in this in its broadness eventually became awful to sit through in its tone. Even with Krueger wearing sunglasses on a beach in part 4, in 1988, you still had some semblance of the horror of the premise, but here there is something really tonally out of place. That this is a bigger budgeted film for horror, for a franchise, has to be factored in. This is worth bringing up here now, as pulling the curtain back, I have reached a point as a horror viewer (and a viewer in general) my tastes have sided to areas like no budget filmmaking and outsider art. Much of this area is cinema many would not defend, but has the virtue that it is regional and of an individual's personal influences, when even their ill thought-out comedy and tonal shifts factor in. Here, even with Talalay involved, I find Freddy's Dead really contrived, and to the point you cannot even argue for personal pleasure, but that it is disjointed and painful.

It also has the awkward factor of trying to sustain this franchise, by having lore newly added that feels overcomplicated. This is set up with a good and morbid idea, as Freddy Krueger has killed every teenager and child in his region baring one, who is sent out into the world, and falling into the presence of Maggie Burroughs (Lisa Zane), a councillor for troubled youths, who Krueger wants to prey on. What happens does nod to Dream Warriors (1987) with its group of young adults trying to fight Kruger, the third film and the one, I will be honest about, that for all its love in the franchise is for me probably the influence for how Elm Street as a franchise transitioned as it did. That could have however been worked around, especially whilst I view it as one of the less interesting sequels, Dream Warriors was good in context, and this in having the potential to go somewhere, with the likes of Yaphet Kotto in the cast, as a therapist with barely enough time to help the kids nor paid enough, and a morbidly exaggerated take on the town Krueger less childless, a place of deranged adults who wander their fairs and classes out of trauma.

What happens instead is how, baring the 2010 remake, this does become the worse of the franchise as even its dream sequences are not great. Elm Street had one huge virtue over other horror franchises from this time as because of its premise, a killer that attacked victims in their dreams, there were no rules in what you could do as long as the special and practical effects teams could conceive it. Even if the later films had shaky moments, like invisible martial artists and a dog peeing fire to resurrect Krueger in Part 4, that film by itself also had a déjà-vu sequence repeating a scene, or the likes of what Screamin' Mad George, a Japanese practical effects artist, brought to that film with the likes of the roach hotel sequence of someone turning into a cockroach. Here there are some creepy and inspired touches, such as the motif of an entire suburban house falling from out the sky in a reoccurring dream, but you get some terrible content.

By Dream Warriors, still a good film Dokken and all, you started getting the change, despite being a fictional child killer, of Freddy Kruger being cooler than the rest of the cast including the heroes. Thankfully, over the sequels, the films were still concerned with their protagonists, and it just meant Krueger started making wisecracks. Eventually however, alongside this being to blame for so many villains in horror films at this point making jokes, this perceived image of this character has completely taken over here, and even if you had levity in the previous films, here the line is blatantly crossed. Not even having cameos by Rosanne Barr and Tom Arnold, a then-married comedic couple from the TV show Roseanne (1988–1997), could be seen as the lower aspect, but how this stops trying to take itself seriously and how this even includes Robert Englund, despite his hardest returning as Krueger, playing a buffoonish version of the character.

Englund does his hundred percent, but for such a good actor in this world of genre cinema, this is beneath him, traumatising a deaf teen by cartoonishly scratching a giant blackboard, or that this film explicitly references the Power Glove, a misguided project by the video game empire Nintendo. The entire video game nightmare really emphasises where Freddy's Dead lost me entirely on this viewing, a reminder that whilst New Line Cinema have done a lot a good in their existence, they are a company whose batting average with the ideas they have can easily split into the cringe worthy. Here it is awful, knowing this was made in a time when the Power Glove, a way to play NES games on a glove, was once a sellable premise, alongside the fact that the sequence emphasises the bad ideas of the whole film, from In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida by Iron Butterfly, even if a good song, feeling out of place or how the animation in the dream sequence is terrible.

This really presents a slippery slope that, at the time they decide to finish the franchise, they make many really self congratulatory decisions which feel misguided. The plot adds content, as happens in longer horror franchises, which neuters the original premise, as these franchises have an unfortunate habit of trying to explain the evil of their leads, in this case dream devil worms being behind Krueger's abilities to enter dreams. That and the huge tonal issues this film has as a result, such as the tragedy of a character dying contrasted by it being causes, out of a cartoon, of falling on a comically large bed of spikes pushes by Krueger in the middle of a road. Tonally as well, one of the hugest leaps comes in mind of the character Tracey (Lezlie Deane); standoffish, uncomfortable being touched, she is explicitly a victim of sexual abuse from her father, but attempting to use that for her nightmare sequence, unlike one of the earlier films, it really out of place here with the comedy.

It does not feel as a film enough of a spectacle, and even that feels at odds when, whilst for practical effects for the sake of them, this lacks most of the imagination of the previous ones in this series too. What it does end on, even if trying to including a back-story about Krueger's life as a married man, is ultimately throwing the kitchen sink of even a 3D glasses gimmick. This is signposted by a pair inexplicitly onscreen just for the moment, when Lisa Zane puts them on, you the viewer have to put them on, and it feels out of place especially when you cannot watch the film as intended. Back when I watched this within binging the original franchise, Freddy's Dead had a symbolic meaning of worth, that here with the bloat of the franchise, New Nightmare was explicitly about Freddy Krueger being a "real" demon that was kept at bay by horror sequels, giving this meaning. Watched by itself, this is bad, really bad, and it hurts to experience it without the softening blow of the accidental virtue it added to the film afterwards. Even with this having end credits going through the films of before, this definitely was not a great send off to this franchise, having needed a send off which thankfully lived up to something more meaningful.

Two Films by Philippe Garrel

 

The Virgin's Bed (1969)

Director: Philippe Garrel

Screenplay: Philippe Garrel

Cast: Zouzou as Marie / Marie Magdalène; Pierre Clémenti as Jesus; Tina Aumont as the Prisoner; Philippe Garrel as the Apostle; Jean-Pierre Kalfon as the Horseman

An Abstract Candidate

 

[Sung] Young Jesus goes to school carrying his cross under his shoulder.

Made after Le Révélateur (1968), but in sound, The Virgin's Bed imagines Jesus, already a grown man, born to a mortal woman and a God who he cries to about seeing the "shithole" below, his mother Marie scolding him for cursing, both of them on a beach on a bed, one which will return as a moving vehicle the camera and the characters ride on. Contrary to what you would presume from that description, this is not necessarily a blasphemous film, instead coming off as the most traditionally unconventional film in Philippe Garrel's filmography at this point.

Set in a vague non-time, the modern day in places but everyone dressed as still in old Nazareth, as psychedelic rock guitar jams score over the monochrome images, you feel sympathy for Jesus in the first hour of the film, or at least I did. This is a depressed Jesus who, even with a megaphone, is unable to talk or be listened to by anyone, only getting an apostle later who is the director himself. Even shouting "I am the saviour!" leads nowhere, as no on even opens a gate for him. Far from blasphemous, it is imagining Jesus Christ, with a crown of thorns, having to contemplate our era. Air raid sirens are heard, and gun fire and war is heard outside in the far distance. Shot in stark (beautiful) black and white, this reflects a very different world for the Christian figure to exist in, the film of the sixties but with a meaningful idea, even if played for moments of humour, of what the figure means if He came to a period like then.

This would have been fascinating if the film had stayed like this in tone. The Virgin Mary is now the disappointed mother who irons his shirts, but Mary Madeleine (or her stand-in) is there for him still, when he is cold and hungry, who exchanges sexual pleasures for stones but eventually bonds with him and joins him. A song, almost sounding like Nico (who Garrel dated) is heard at one point as he wanders outside in despair, and it is haunting. Far from feeling like an anti-Christian film, it feels, however, a film, regardless of Garrel's beliefs at the time, where he has a Jesus a figure out of time and imagines what His place would be in the then-current world.

Things take a left term when Jesus kills his mother, and this is not a film with a clear narrative more so afterwards, with Jesus wondering with a mysterious box onwards into the world. I admit to loving the "surreal" films of this era, the sixties and the seventies, even those which meandered like this one, but here, there would have been a greater interest if this had focused on its initial premise. Even when this tries to stray back to this, such as leading to a execution area in a cave with firing squads, where Madeleine ends up with, it feels unfocused to a detriment.

It definitely feels a strange outlier to Philippe Garrel, one of the few films too where there is a moving camera and long panning shots as well as he was clearly finding his technical side as well. This is a curiosity to see, but it does at the same time feel like an awkward match for a director, having seen other films from this era, who grew with L'enfant secret (1979), the start of his real career trajectory. This is a compelling piece - there is a striking image, with Jesus facing the camera on a crucifix, at night on the beach - but as with many auteurs, many have weird one-offs and dead ends in their career, and The Virgin's Bed is likely Philippe Garrel's. They are divisive creations, expressing flaws or their creator's personality even by accident. Here it is thankfully just a reveal that Garrel prodded at interesting ideas even here but, with the more intimate aspects with a depressed and human Jesus, he found more appeal and worth in drama and dealing with emotions than the surreal.

Abstract Spectrum: Surreal

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

*****

Les hautes solitudes (1974)

Director: Philippe Garrel

Cast: Jean Seberg; Nico; Tina Aumont; Laurent Terzieff

An Abstract Candidate

 

Les hautes Solitudes was the first Philippe Garrel film I saw, on a fuzzy VHS rip, and had a very negative reaction to. My younger self was not prepared for a film like this, so I am not surprised I once gave this a one out of five stars.

Another of the films with neither diegetic or non-diegetic sound, this feels closer to an art installation, snapshots of figures like Nico and Jean Seberg, a figure in cinema's history either portrayed in the shadow of Breathless (1960), her most iconic role, or her early death. She was a figure with a history of tragedy, mental illness and being affectively hounded by the FBI for her relations with the Black Panthers. This film for many is going to be more important in the context of Seberg - post Breathless, her career was halted greatly, is obscure with questionable sounding films, and effectively with her in exile from the United States baring occasional films like Airport (1970).

Everyone though - almost all women among the figures onscreen - are filmed in silence, all in the point of melancholia, the world around them mostly in close-up, dank and shrouded in darkness. It does feel like one is breathing in despair in the close-in or close-up shots. However, and whilst I have grown to now see the film's virtues, this is one case where a lack of sound personally distracts from the point even if the structure has incredible virtues. This is likely as much me as a viewer, feeling disconnect by this technical decision, but it does force one arms length too, where someone onscreen is actually crying in great grief, without previous context and without sound, to hear her voice, to which to care for her.

Les hautes Solitudes is not a film to express fully in text because it strips moving images down to basic images, human figures as figures, you need to see and think of in context to seeing them. It is a difficult film, and one whilst I admire feels "tough" and even obscure at times. It is a work I have gained finally an admiration for, but it strips away perceived markers in mainstream cinema of what it should present, something which would be installation art nowadays as mentioned, and could be allowed to breath if able to be seen constantly in such an environment. My coldness is that, to empathise with others, I perceive the world through more than my eyes and vision, whilst here it is a challenge to how one perceived another person with just the eyes, in itself a successful one but also one which raises questions of itself, as these moving portraits of people in silence, in their quietest and even bleakest moments, are cut off (for the most part) from outside and aspects within this that would increase emotional connection. Maybe that was a point, but Jean Seberg in particular offers this uneasy disconnect in her involvement as, with accidental prophecy, this forecast her own death in the closing images, perceived as suicide. Reality, and real history, forces this piece to have emotional relevance, but by itself, Les hautes Solitude is merely a reflection of emotion which is an issue to debate.

It is, without a doubt, a truly compelling piece, once which without trivialising it, went past in viewing easily for me in terms of time, showing how far I have come as a viewer of these films. It is truly abstract, but sometimes in experimenting with the visual form, you have to ask whether the results will cause one to question the film's purpose. This is a work I would likely grow even more appreciative of, but it is a film where it causes one to question its decisions as well.

Abstract Spectrum: Avant-Garde/Contempative

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

Games of the Abstract: Bubble Symphony (1994)

 

Publisher: Taito

Developer: Taito

Two Player

Arcade / Sega Saturn

 

The origin of Bubble Symphony is its prequel Bubble Bobble (1986), a highly well regarded arcade game which, alongside its many conversations to home computers of the era like the Commodore 64, became an iconic series for Taito. Based around cute dragons blowing bubbles to defeat enemies, some may know this series through the spin-off Puzzle Bobble or Bust-A-Move, a prolific puzzle game series where you fired corresponding coloured bubbles up screen at bubbles to remove them. Bubble Bobble however was a one-screen platformer where, with multiple levels, you play characters turned into bubble blowing dragons and have to clear screens of enemies to get to the next level. You blow a bubble at the right time, capture an enemy, and have a short amount of time before they escape to jump at it to pop them.

Bubble Symphony is the lavish sequel where, increasing the cast from two male dragons to include two female dragons, with their own differences, this also becomes a tribute to Taito itself whilst living up to its title, a symphony both in music and visuals. Lavishly cute, multicolour and bright, you have to completely levels to reach the amusingly named Hyper Drunk, a magician who turns the four child leads into dragons after they unleash him from the books they are reading. The game is split into worlds with individual levels and a boss, entirely one screen for each level. Clearing through the enemies, you can fall off the screen and appear falling from the top, and can get power ups alongside trinkets, from fruit to gems, to gain points. You can speed up or slow down your fall and, unlike me who struggled with this, if you can pull it off you can bounce off your own bubble to reach higher. Failing to complete a level quickly and the Skel-Monsta (a.k.a. Baron von Blubba) is summoned, an indestructible white ghost who only leaves if you lose a life or finish the level. The bosses require you to collect a special power up for that screen and fight them with new special bubbles, be it thunder bolts the go the direction opposite to you, or the mini-twisters that go up wards as ammo. For the Japanese Sega Saturn version, which becomes a huge virtue, you have unlimited lives and just have to plough through continues and/or get better with how to play.

Bubble Symphony's interesting twist is that, after the first world, you get an option of four doors to choose from and, onwards with two doors, if you complete a world you can choose which world to go to next. With name like TV Land or Radish Land, this gets more interesting as you can have levels referencing Taito's legacy, such as a Darius themed world based on the serious scrolling shooting, an intergalactic one with aquatic based themes. It says a great deal of the game's charms when, in the end credits, the characters and even individual enemies get their own credits, including all the cameos. Bubble Symphony can be frustrating at points - the bubble jump was difficult to pull off and, due to the layout of some levels, you can find yourself stuck or having little window to get past enemies. It also has frustrating mechanic that, if you want to true ending, you need to collect music note tokens in esoteric moments to get four keys, which is annoying. But this is still a game I loved in playing because of its vibrancy, and those frustrations do not, in the slightest, ruin so many of the virtues on display.

It is a cute, beautiful looking game. The music is poppy and pretty, whilst even structured around rigid platforms of a dreamt world than a logical reality, it is magical in terms of the worlds you enter as you play. This game does emphasise the magic of the 2D sprite era of games, of even the "To Continue" option being here instead a crying dragon in the corner you start the level from, a little animation to tug at the heart strings if you are not raring already to get back into the game, with Bubble Symphony's ease for the most part to understand the mechanics of helping. The boss battles in particular have a memorability in themselves, be it literally turning into Space Invaders, or fighting a female tanuki (racoon dog) in a shrine priestess human form, or the Darius World ending in turning into a hybrid between a one stage platformer and a shooter, all against of all things a giant hermit crab whose shell is a war ship.

This franchise has lasted into the modern day, with the likes of Bubble Bobble 4 Friends (2019), though in an interesting turn, for another review, the Puzzle Bobble franchise itself far from just a spin-off became just as prolific and distinct in its own way. Taito, founded by a Ukrainian Jewish businessman Michael “Misha” Kogan in 1953, is fascinating as a company who, when it was founded, began as a vodka distillery (the first company to produce vodka in Japan) and an importer of peanut vending machines and perfume machines¹. To think they would become the minds behind the legendary Space Invaders (1978) game, and become well regarded as a gaming company, amuses me. They were bought by Square Enix in 2005, and in the 2010s, a lot of their work was for smart phones and tablets. By the end of the 2010s, they have been making games for the likes of the Nintendo Switch, which is a positive though. As for Bubble Symphony itself, it would be a pleasure if this ever got a re-release in the future, as honestly this is the kind of game that is ageless and adorably well constructed anyone could admire. Its title is not false advertising in the slightest, and even a spin-off which played with this game's aesthetic, bright colours and embracing the heritage of this gaming company in a playful nostalgia, would be something to love in the modern day.

=======

1) As referred to HERE.

Lost, Lost, Lost (1976)

 

Director: Jonas Mekas

Canon Fodder

 

August 10:

"Worse than the Twilight Zone"

Jonas Mekas early in this document of his life compares himself to Ulysses, one form of the Roman name of Odysseus, a legendary Greek king of Ithaca and the hero of Homer's epic poem the Odyssey who, returning from that odyssey after ten years, despite originally just trying to returning home from the Trojan War, felt weary in his homecoming. Weary in his homecoming in a new world to him, we begin in  1949, a week into Jonas Mekas and his brother emigrating to the United States, having bought a Bolex camera between them which we see the footage from, in this film composed together in 1976 decades later. A displaced person in New York City, this Lithuanian migrant's experience is steeped in melancholia, but as he would find happiness in his new life, and return to Lithuania briefly one day in the future, so too does the world he entered feel brimming with fascinating. This preserves that world he entered like amber on film, even the nudie joints and downtown cinemas selling sex, from which after his sense of being lost he would eventually find himself.

Mekas admits early on he is sentimental, rather than record abstract images, and as a film that view is taken as it goes from his new life in 1949 to the sixties, Lost, Lost, Lost now I come to it appreciating his work rewarding as a journey over three hours felt fully. It does not hide the fact he was displaced. Fellow Lithuanians meet up at the House of Lape, as seen, and we see football (soccer) games, picnics, traditional folk dances, and even a Lithuanian wedding in Brooklyn. Openly viewing himself and others like him lost in stasis, to eventually diminish in number, Mekas  even shows that their nationality was to question even as exiles, as he briefly covers the conflict of Lithuanian communists versus Lithuanian nationalists, as their country became a Soviet nation in the future Iron Curtain, footage recorded by him even showing protesters with signs.

This is the kind of source which can now compel me, as it is an epic documentation of one man's past as a diary, one of many Mekas would make as he kept recording his life for decades even after this production. Eventually this film reaches the end of its first and second parts (reels 1 and 2), with this chapter of him and his fellow migrants in the United States, with him reconsidering himself beyond an exile, by 1953, to become a Lithuanian needing to rebuild himself. He did, and where Lost, Lost, Lost grows is that in the little details of the life seen, from leaving Brooklyn to Manhattan, even going briefly to New Jersey for shooting grounds, he amplified the life that he experienced and reconsiders it with greater meaning we all learn from.

And the film, based around six reels, does become profound. Fiction and reality both have their places to tell meaningful narratives, full of introspection, but entirely based on reality, this accomplishes this greatly, where even when ending up in Los Angeles, living on "miserable sandwiches and coffee", you see many profound moments Mekas was rewarded with in his perseverance. Only one segment, an extensive one on "Rabbit Shit Haikus", feels broad and trying a little to the point of pretention ("the road, the road, the road...."), even if the name comes from the dark humoured idea that, if life is a journey, he imagines someone reaching the end of the road only to find rabbit droppings and having to turn back round, having to explain what they find to the people back at the start. That segment feels contrived when everything else is intimate and felt fully, meaningful with just the littlest of moments such as a montage of a woman chewing bubblegum, and blowing bubbles, in a variety of different places strung together. His eventual future as a huge figure for avant-garde cinema in his new homeland was documented by himself without ego, filming the world for these filmmakers as it was, such as footage of Robert Frank shooting The Sins of Jesus (1962) at a chicken farm. Mekas also found himself in places of history of the time beyond cinema too, at the right time and right places recording in the middle of an anti-nuke protest, a large scale one that lasts into the night with Mekas front row (literally in the midst of) with his camera.  

It is difficult for me to review a film which is entirely of these images and visuals, which you can argue for all cinema, which should be seen and then discussed. But here especially, Lost, Lost, Lost is a profound work that should be seen, a piece which is compelling as an extensive home recorded narrative. We see over time Mekas find himself, this documentary in itself with him looking back at the time with this in mind, questioning what it meant to be a migrant living in another country and eventually lead to become the man he became, famous for this when Lost, Lost, Lost was compiled and released. It is stepped in melancholy throughout, but as time has passed from watching the film, this mood has seeped away and I look back at this film as a celebration. He crossed paths with fascinating figures, between a Tiny Tim cameo in reel 6, or the sight of an older Salvador Dali conversing with a group over optical illusions in another scene. Mekas even if his journey could end just finding rabbit droppings must have realised the distance was still worth it just for the walking he did.

Eventually a viewer will see this in the early stages of who Mekas became, travelling with film prints of Flaming Creatures (1963) and Blonde Cobra (1963) for screenings only to be forced to sleep outside in the cold, with friends, in Vermont. He is able however in the footage to appreciate the moment between them, becoming a victory for a man who, as documented in his own film Reminiscences of a Journey to Lithuania (1972), originally fled his home land due to Nazi invasion and even ending up a prisoner to them briefly. He jokes over this footage of he and the figures in this footage having been "the monks of cinema", aptly with Mekas onscreen waving his camera around with monk chanting on the soundtrack, all justified knowing his reputation in promoting others' work avant-garde cinema let alone his own work being profound for decades to come. After nearly three hours of Mekas trying to find himself as an exile, to joke like this in the final stages of the archive material feels like he found himself, Lost, Lost, Lost for us the viewers a celebration of finding oneself, certainly a film is dire need of greater recognition as a gem of the art form.

Reminiscences of a Journey to Lithuania (1972)

 

Director: Jonas Mekas

Canon Fodder

 

Berries, always berries.

Reminiscences... was the first Jonas Mekas film I ever saw, and I did not appreciate it. His films today, having come to appreciate them, belay what cinema can be. I do not consider this an insult, but this huge figure in American avant-garde cinema in his own work compiled what would effectively be lifelong home movies to most viewers, becoming diaries that spanned decades which he would eventually compile into short and long form features based on the subjects per work. You see this in the first pieces of Reminiscences..., scored to solemn piano music, of the streets of Brooklyn from his perspective as a Lithuanian migrant. This is real homemade footage focused on fragments of the most innocuous of images, like kids playing on the street, turned into something profound by time and his focus on them. The time capsule nature is profound - Mekas' own narration is personal and introspective, contrasting that the footage is archival and meaningful even without his compelling words over them.

Mekas' own accounts build together a life for those around him, a world where even an anecdote never seen onscreen is meaningful, such as his brother when drafted into the army being shipped back because he started eating leaves and was presumed to be mentally unstable. Mekas' own life is complex as, documented in this film specifically, he was a migrant who had to flee his homeland from invading Nazi Germany, including being imprisoned by them before he got to the United States with his brother finally. Reminiscences... follows him finally returning to his homeland in 1971.

Intermingling colour and monochrome footage, Mekas' work immediately evokes a time in my life of volunteering in a film archive, devoted to sorting through home movies on a variety of formats to discern historical importance, working on the types of film materials Mekas may have considered or even use like 8mm film reels, discerning the images on hand cranked projectors you had to squint to scan the images of. Here there is a greater existential nature, of a man from World War II in exile finally returning home. An additional factor at the time is that his home of Lithuania then was also a Soviet nation which is touched upon.

It is difficult to describe this, as it has to be experienced viewing the footage, seeing through his camera eye and thoughts of the world within them, of music, of drinking and sleeping on hay in a profound moment in his life he calmly, gracefully, recounts as a storyteller. Baring some rapid editing, this is only "avant-garde" in how sadly people do not want to watch something this sincere on mass to fictional reality. This is sad as, finally understanding this after the first viewing, returning to these reminiscences is incredibly gentle. Entirely in the countryside in the Lithuania section, there is not even a spectre of communism really here, where it feels less different from the land of Mekas' relatives when they were younger, baring that now collective farming groups exist. A running gag is how the native Lithuanians joke they will probably look backwards to the United States, all in an amused attitude, such as having to use hand ploughs.

It is a beautiful piece, structured in chapters, part 1 almost a prologue, the Lithuanian section part 2 with 91 shots makings it up, whilst part 2 examines how, fleeing the country, he did end up in a Nazi prison camp, going to Germany, before finally escaping to the United States. Far from a bleak affair, it comes with curiosity as, able to go to the factory he as a prisoner had to work in, now a heritage site, he can reflect on this history and even meet one of the staff, now an older man, with no grievances and now empathy for each other. It is a soothing reminder of how, even with the horrors of World War II and Nazi Germany, human beings are still human beings capable of empathy.

More so as Mekas, the man he became, ends the film, where with the colour of the film stock used adding such a striking look, the colour red so unique to this footage, Mekas goes to Vienna. The man who returned home, to be able to see family he left in his country, was also able to become a hugely profound figure for growing avant-garde cinema. His films soften and remind us viewers in the modern day even these seminal avant-garde filmmakers are us, where Peter Kubelka, the legendary filmmaker who turned a commissioned beer commercial into an elliptical short Schwechater (1958), is seen as a jovial man feeing pigeons, or how Ken Jacobs, of Star Spangled to Death (2004), was dubbed "the Child" by Mekas. Even tragedy, when Vienna burning at night due to the final is the final images of the film, as Kubelka is recounted lamenting a market he was fond of burning down, is felt with a greater worth than just mere sadness. That at least the market existed and is remembered, and that, yes, even destruction can be beautiful as it is here, the sight of crimson reds, oranges and flickers of yellow on black stunning to behold. If this review feels whimsical, more than usual, it is because trying to speak of Mekas beyond this would be absurd. Sadly, his films are difficult to see, a tragedy as never was there a man in avant-garde filmmaking who championed humility.