Hold Me While I’m Naked

There’s a lot of things in life worth livin’ for… isn’t there?

George Kuchar. Does the name sound familiar? Well, it shouldn’t, and if I had my way, you’d never have known it in the first place. Yes, you likely only know it because I just told it to you, but it’s not my fault; I’m hogtied into talking about the man, due to the presence of his short film, Hold Me While I’m Naked, on the List. Why this is on here, I have no idea; why it even exists, I haven’t a clue. This is the sort of short that is insulting to an aspiring filmmaker such as myself, since a film of this quality and content could easily have been squirted out by any competently artistic ten-year-old.

This has all the aesthetic and sensibility of a student film gone hideously out of whack. The video and sound quality were less than stellar, to say the least; most of the plot just seemed to be about the one filmmaker and a lot of naked and sexually alluring women, which isn’t much of a plot, but makes for one hell of a selling point. There’s some interesting images in this, I’ll give it that, but nothing that screams, “Oh my god, you HAVE to see this before you die”. Really, there’s nothing to this at all, and yet, everywhere I look, I can find at least one review or bullet point about this short calling it a masterpiece. Why? How? How is this a masterpiece? Really, that word is tossed around so much it has lost its relevance, but even in this watered-down lexicon, I cannot find any place for such a word to be thrown at this short.

Okay, at this point, I’m just emptying the rest of my clip into the dead corpse that lies before me, so I’ll stop, and just say this. Should you see this film? No, not really. It may not be as purely depraved as Flaming Creatures, or as baselessly random as Un Chien Andalou, but that doesn’t mean there’s anything of worth to be had here. It’s mostly just your average cliché American wannabe-Nouvelle-Vague student film; a mash-up of various elements with little to no care as to how they should go together. I suspect the elements of the underground film scene of yesteryear are mostly self-referential, as certain “major” players in the underground all seem to have one obligatory slot on the list, seemingly for no other reason than all the others have a slot of their own. Oh well; seems I’m not fully out of the woods quite yet.

Arbitrary Rating: 4/10

India Song

Leprosy. Leprosy of the heart.

As should be readily apparent by now to anyone who reads this blog, I make sure I know a little bit about a flick before I see it, both to prepare myself for what I’m about to see, and to make sure I’m not too caught off guard. So when I did a little research into India Song, to see what made it so outstanding, either in quality or in significance, and pretty much came up with nothing, I was a bit dubious as to whether the film was going to be worth it. Well, I’m glad I did my research; there is very little to be grateful to India Song for, and anything that is to be found here can easily be found elsewhere in much more worthwhile films.

The film apparently deals with the boredom-instigated indiscretions of the wife of a French diplomat living in India. I use the word “apparently” because I really couldn’t have given a flying arse what this film was about; that’s how badly the story was told. Most, if not all, of the plot and the dialogue takes place through voice-over narration, as if the film and its actors’ movements were mere art exhibits, and the voiceover was explaining the significance of what we were seeing to us; an audio tour guide straight from the artist herself. As for said artist, Marguerite Duras, this was apparently an adaptation of an unproduced play of hers, which makes me immediately want to call shenanigans; I was brought up in the theater, and grew up on film, and I know the fine line between the two, and one of the main focuses that makes a theatrical screenplay rather than a film screenplay is one word: dialogue. This film had none. Zero. Everything was voice-over explanation, so how in the world could this have been a stage play? I can see how it remained unproduced; if Duras had dared to do on stage what she does on screen here, I can’t imagine the sheer amount of rotting fruits and vegetables she would have had to endure coming her way on opening night.

I really, honestly, cannot believe I sat through this one. The Book calls this “demanding but fascinating viewing”, adding that people tend to find the work either “hypnotically seductive or maddeningly pretentious”. I don’t use quotes from the Book that often, but this was too perfect to ignore, and it matched my mindset about the film exactly; it was visually entrancing (mostly because of how deliberate and slow everything in the frame is), but one couldn’t ignore the air the film puts off – that air of “high art” that the film clearly thinks of itself as. I’d tell this film to look to the work of Terrence Malick to figure out how to have this air about oneself, but not have it come across so dramatically, and still be an entertaining film; this was just lofty and highbrow in the most stuck-up of ways, and one could very finitely get the sensation that the film felt it was better than you, and that if you didn’t like it, you were an indignant, uncultured troglodyte. Well, call me arrogant or egotistical for saying so, but I believe myself to have quite the cultured palette when it comes to film; able to enjoy a little bit of everything, including from the genres I don’t normally like, like lowbrow horror, neorealism, or screwball comedies. India Song, however, I could see right through like I had laser vision, and to quote another review I found about this film, it is “no content and all style”. Now, normally, I can go for a film like this; I will readily acknowledge my propensity to lavish praise upon films that are breathtaking visually but admittedly come up short in the story department, but this one was just so mean spirited about it; India Song, if it were a person, would have the stiffest upper lip I think I would have ever seen on anyone in my life, and no amount of sternly worded, look-down-the-nose debate from such a person is going to make me enjoy said person’s company.

I was completely on the fence about whether to give this a 5 or a 4, but in the end, I decided to be mean. Take from that what you will.

Arbitrary Rating: 4/10

Satantango

Human life is meaningful, rich, beautiful, and filthy.

In this day and age of shortened attention spans, you’ve really gotta have something special if your film is gonna run over two hours. You have to keep your audience hooked the whole way through, or it isn’t gonna work as well as you think it will. So when a film like Satantango comes along, at a modestly hefty 7 hours and 12 minutes, you wonder just what could be so incredible about this film to warrant such a running time. Well, in Satantango’s case, nothing. The film is long merely because the director wanted it to be, and for no other reason.

The film’s opening shot, for instance, lasts roughly eight minutes, and consists of cows milling around a farm. There is nothing else that happens, just cows. Why this shot takes practically the length of an entire film reel is beyond me; this is a shot that easily could’ve made it onto the cutting room floor. And it’s not just the opening shot, oh no; every shot in the film is like this. The shots themselves have a very beautiful quality about them, in certain ways, but it’s mostly the fact that they linger for so long that really sticks with you, and perhaps not for the best reasons. There were many times I got up and went to the bathroom or went for a drink or a snack (in no hurry, mind you), and came back to find I had missed absolutely nothing. I can appreciate art, but art for art’s sake has a line, and for me, this film crossed it.

I can understand what the director wants with his vision; I can moderately appreciate what he tries to achieve with his film, but there was a small part of me that just took offense to the whole affair. I was insulted that the director had the gall to make me sit through a seven hour film pretty much solely because he wanted it to be that long. Well, another one off my list of 3+ hour films, at least. I feel this should be classified more as an art exhibit than an actual film, but to actually do so would be splitting hairs, so I won’t bother. The director, Bela Tarr, displays a fine craftsmanship and eye for beauty, but the film was just too much for me, and unless you’re an absolute diehard, it will be for you too.

Arbitrary Rating: 4/10

Blonde Cobra

Mother? Mooooootheeeerrr....?

Blonde Cobra is a short directed by Ken Jacobs that features filmmaker and all-around weirdo Jack Smith (known for Flaming Creatures). Here, he stars in what can generously be called a film; it’s really a disjointed series of vignette-like images mostly of Smith, as it seems, being Smith. Brief, staccato-like editing punctuates the surreal and nearly vapid disconnection the film has with its audience. This film doesn’t care that you’re watching it, or even that it was made at all. This is merely a window into one man’s mind, albeit a fractured window with many scratches and pieces missing.

Why this is a must see I have no idea, other than the pure absurdity of it. This isn’t structured surrealism like Un Chien Andalou; this is just madness on celluloid. I’m not quite sure if a film could possibly be more absurd than Blonde Cobra, and thus it joins the ranks of Murder, My Sweet and The Searchers as the epitome of its particular….genre. If anything said so far has piqued your interest, give it a shot; it’s currently on Youtube and it’s only about 30 minutes long, though it may feel longer than that. Otherwise, you won’t be missing much of an experience to be had before you die, other than the truly one-of-a-kind-ness of it.

Arbitrary Rating: 4/10

There’s Something About Mary

When I was 16 years old, I fell in love.

There’s Something About Mary was a highly successful comedy for its time directed by the Farrelly Brothers, responsible for Dumb and Dumber and Kingpin, if that’s your sort of thing. It’s not mine, however, so I was not looking forward to this one.

The film makes frequent use of modern slapstick, which I never really found amusing when it was used in a modern sense. Only sporadically did I find slapstick humorous even classically. The situational humor is used to mostly sexual or gross-out effect, which is a pet peeve of mine in cinema. The humor, while I was able to tell was trying to be funny, either falls flat on its face or just straight out fails at being funny. Where the film does succeed, at least for me, is how the various men try and sabotage each other’s efforts to win the girl; I at least found the various efforts amusing. Cameron Diaz does admirably with her role, which was a pleasant surprise, and Ben Stiller does good as, well, Ben Stiller. One other thing I did enjoy was the set dressing, as odd as that sounds; I found it very soothing and well-done.

All in all, this just turned out to be another of the types of comedies that I just can’t stand. It was better than most, but it still fell into the same old traps that I detest in comedic films. I don’t know how to recommend this one, since I didn’t like it; all I can say is if this style of humor is for you, this film will be a standout example. If not, you’re better off staying away.

Arbitrary Rating: 4/10

Les Vampires

I am...The Great Vampire.

Les Vampires is an interesting one, mainly because it is a movie serial that comprises ten episodes. It’s also French, but being a silent film it is easily translatable into other languages, so no worry there. As always, I’ve tried to review the film(s) as I would if I were living in the time period of the film’s release, watching it for the first time, and garnering what I would from that. However, in this case, even though I was watching it as if I were in 1915, I still didn’t really get why I had to watch it in the first place.

The plot is very interesting, and really is about the only thing that’s really redeemable about the series. The cinematography is basic at best, even for the times. The color coding for the types of lighting is a little odd, but you quickly become accustomed to it, and it becomes a useful tool for the story. There are a number of subplots that are all taking place around the same time, but few of them warrant any real attention and seem to be there mostly for padding the serial.

To be honest, I’m not really certain why this, above others, was chosen to be on the Must See list. Aside from the marginally compelling plot, there’s nothing here that’s really notable enough to warrant “must see” status. I’ve noticed my reviews have tended to be curved more towards the higher end of the scale, so I’ve gotten a little stricter with my arbitrary ratings as of late, but even still, this is one I can’t really recommend aside from 1001 Movie completionists, and they’ve got quite a long haul to get through with this one.

Arbitrary Rating: 4/10