L'Atalante

Year:  1934

Director:  Jean Vigo

Screenplay:  Jean Vigo and Albert Riéra, based on an original scenario by Jean Guinée

Starring:  Michel Simon, Dita Parlo, Jean Dasté

Running Time:  89 minutes

Genre:  Drama

After a whirlwind romance, country girl Juliette (Parlo) marries Jean (Dasté), captain of the barge L'Atalante.  However, the cramped conditions in the barge, as well as the crew consisting of the earthy Père Jules (Simon) and the cabin boy (Louis Lefebvre), and Jules' numerous pet cats soon puts a strain on the marriage.  After an encounter with a charming peddler (Gilles Margaritis), Juliette makes an impulsive trip to Paris, and ends up lost and penniless in a strange city.  Distraught by her departure, Jean begins to fall apart, and it's up to Père Jules to put matters to rights.

French writer/director Jean Vigo died of tuberculosis at the age of 29, having completed three short films and one feature, and yet is regarded as one of the greats of French cinema.  L'Atalante is often regarded as one of the greatest films ever made.  The film mixes social realism with poetic romanticism.  Michel Simon makes an indelible impression as the bawdy, earthy, fiercely loyal Père Jules, and Dita Parlo is great as the romantic, vulnerable, headstrong Juliette.  Jean Dasté is good as the romantic but fiercely jealous captain of the barge, but he is overshadowed by the performances of Simon and Parlo.  L'Atalante followed Vigo's controversial short film about schoolboy rebellion, Zero for Conduct (1933), which was banned by the French government until 1945 and went on to influence such films as François Truffaut's The 400 Blows (1959) and Lindsay Anderson's If.... (1968).  L'Atalante too ran into stormy waters as the distributor cut the film to 65 minutes and retitled it The Passing Barge to make it more commercial.  Vigo, who did shortly after the film's release, was too ill to fight them.  However the film has now been restored to its original length, and it is somehow gratifying that Vigo's legacy has grown with time.  You can tell that L'Atalante is a young person's film, filled as it is with endless invention, mixing documentary-style footage with heavily stylised, almost surreal sequences, a playful sense of humour and invention, and scenes of grimy reality, lightened by poetic beauty and romance, in a way that only film can.  One scene in particular which dissolves between Jean on the barge and Juliette in Paris as they each lie alone in their respective beds, mirroring each other's movements as they toss and turn, unable to sleep, is one of the most powerful scenes of romantic yearning in cinema.

 Dita Parlo and Jean Dasté on board the L'Atalante

Ghost World

Year:  2001

Director:  Terry Zwigoff

Screenplay:  Daniel Clowes and Terry Zwigoff, based on the comic Ghost World by Daniel Clowes

Starring:  Thora Birch, Scarlett Johansson, Steve Buscemi, Brad Renfro, Illeana Douglas

Running Time:  112 minutes

Genre:  Dark comedy, drama

In the bland suburbs of an unnamed American city, cynical teenage outcasts Enid (Birch) and Rebecca (Johansson) have just left high school.  However, a summer of wandering the streets, hanging out at kitschy diners and shops and tormenting people with their sarcastic quips and pranks is threatened by the fact that Enid has to take a remedial art class in order to graduate high school.  As the two slowly drift apart, Enid strikes up a friendship with eccentric, lonely middle-aged record collector, Seymour (Buscemi).

Ghost World started out as a slice-of-life comic series in writer-artist Daniel Clowes' Eightball between 1993 and 1997, before being published as a graphic novel in 1997.  Director Terry Zwigoff had previously made his name with the documentary Crumb, about controversial underground "comix" artist Robert Crumb.  Zwigoff shot the film in a deliberately flat, bland way, with very few extras in the streets, and the characters entered in the frame, to mimic the panels of the comic.  It also shows the alienation of the characters.  The streets are eerily quiet and empty all the time, and helps give the film it's odd, slightly surreal feel.  Thora Birch, who at the time was coming off the success of American Beauty (1999), gives a great performance as Enid, a character who is at the same time sympathetic, awkward, cool, sometimes cruel, disloyal and confused, and who wrecks havoc in the lives of her friends albeit unintentionally.  Steve Buscemi gives a very strong performance as the lonely record collector Seymour, who loves old ragtime music and collects odd old artefacts, and is mostly quiet and shy but still given to occasional fits of anger, and who the girls first encounter when he falls victim to one of their cruel pranks, but who Enid ends up developing. strong connection with.  Seymour could very easily have been very creepy character, but the way that he is written and the way Buscemi plays him, with a kind of naive sweetness, makes him a surprisingly likeable and sympathetic character.  The film marks the breakthrough role for Scarlett Johansson, who had previously gained some attention for her supporting roles in The Horse Whisperer (1998) and the Coen Brothers film The Man Who Wasn't There (2001).  She gives a very good performance as Rebecca, Enid's friend, who is just as cynical and sarcastic as her friend, but is the more popular half of the duo, and unlike Enid has solid plans for the future.  The film is billed as a comedy, and some scenes are very funny, but it is a surprisingly dark film, and it all ends on a strange, ambiguous note. Although some aspects of it have dated in the past twenty years, it is still a strange and bracing look at what it means to be lonely and trapped in the bland modern world.

Scarlett Johansson and Thora Birch in Ghost World

tick, tick... BOOM!

 Year:  2021

Director:  Lin-Manuel Miranda

Screenplay:  Steven Levenson, based on the stage musical tick, tick... BOOM! by Jonathan Larson

Starring:  Andrew Garfield, Alexandra Shipp, Vanessa Hudgens, Robin de Jesús, Joshua Henry, Judith Light

Running Time:  121 minutes

Genre:  Musical, drama

New York City, January 1990:  Jonathan Larson (Garfield) works in a popular Manhattan diner but his true passion is musical theatre.  For the past eight years he has been working on his passion project, a dystopian science-fiction musical called Superbia.  In a few days time he has the opportunity to put on a workshop product of Superbia, which he hopes will attract the attention of producers and investors as well as proving his talent to friends and family.  Jonathan also feels intense pressure to become successful before he turns 30, which is just over a week away, and so he feels that this production is his last chance to "make it".  He also has to deal with personal tragedies, severe financial troubles, and the fact that he still has to write one of the key songs for his musical, and he has no ideas at all. Meanwhile the clock keeps ticking away.

This is a biographical film telling the early career of playwright and composer Jonathan Larson, who is best known for writing the hit musical Rent, which ran for 12 years on Broadway.  The film is based on a semi-autobiographical "rock monologue" Larson wrote in 1990.  The title refers to an incessant ticking sound that Larson says he hears in his head, referring to his feeling that time is running out.  The film cuts between Andrew Garfield, as Larson, performing the monologue in front of an audience, with a full band, and the musical drama which makes up the bulk of the film.  It's a hugely enjoyable film about the sacrifices, pressures, hopes and joys of making art.  Andrew Garfield gives a great performance in the central role, and also shows that he is a very good singer.  Alexandra Shipp is good as Susan, Larson's long-suffering girlfriend, and Robin de Jesús gives a fantastic performance as Michael, Larson's best friend who gave up his own acting dreams for a career in advertising.  The film acknowledges the AIDS crisis, which claims several of Larson's friends, and that casts a strong shadow over Larson's various problems.  The film marks the directorial debut of actor, writer, singer, songwriter, producer Lin-Manual Miranda, and it is a very accomplished debut, with a huge sense of style and visually spectacular.  The songs are very good.  This is one of the best films that I have seen about writing and the creative process.

Andrew Garfield in tick, tick... BOOM!

"The Invention of Sound" by Chuck Palahniuk

 Year of Publication:  2020

Length:  228 pages

Genre:  Horror, satire

Foster Gates has spent seventeen years trawling the very darkest corners of the internet searching for his missing daughter, and revenge on those who took her.  His quest leads him to Hollywood foley artist Mitzi Ives.  Mitzi specialises in providing screams for horror and action films.  She is the best in the business because her screams are so real, in fact they are harvested from people who are brutally murdered just for their death screams.  Mitzi realises that she has inadvertently come across the perfect scream, one so powerful that it could have potentially deadly consequences.

Since his 1996 debut novel Fight Club, which was made into the classic 1999 film, Chuck Palahniuk has explored the darkest excesses of our modern world in shocking and savage funny novels, comics, journalism and adult colouring books.  The Invention of Sound may not be Palahniuk's best book, but it is a well-written, disturbing and bleakly funny novel, which takes as it's basis one of the most ubiquitous but frequently overlooked aspects of filmmaking, the foley, which is basically creating ordinary sound effects for film and television.  The novel moves between Foster Gates' dark quest for his daughter, the story of possible serial killer Mitzi Ives, and the experiences of former horror star Blush Gentry, who is kidnapped during a Comic Con.  It's written in a fragmented, staccato prose, and is always readable, although it may be too bleak for some readers.  Palahniuk over-eggs the pudding somewhat, piling twist upon twist, particularly at the end, with the introduction of a shadowy conspiracy.

   

I've Heard the Mermaids Singing

Year:  1987

Director:  Patricia Rozema

Screenplay:  Patricia Rozema

Starring:  Sheila McCarthy, Paule Baillargeon, Ann-Marie MacDonald

Running Time:  83 minutes

Genre:  Comedy, drama

Toronto:  Quirky dreamer Polly (McCarthy) is an aspiring photographer who works as a temp.  Her latest job involves being a secretary for art gallery owner Gabrielle (Baillargeon).  As their professional relationship develops into something like a friendship, Polly becomes increasingly fascinated by her.  However, when she meets Gabrielle's younger lover, Mary(MacDonald), she learns a surprising secret.

This very low-budget Canadian indie film is almost the epitome of quirky, indie comedy-dramas.  It's rough around the edges, and at times it's too whimsical for it's own good, but it does have enough charm and invention to sustain it, and make it something quite special.  The film moves from the "real" world (in colour) to black-and-white fantasy sequences depicting Polly's inner world.  It has it's own kind of grammar and style, for example, Gabrielle's own painting, which are supposed to be extremely beautiful, are never shown, being depicted instead as illuminated square panels, and the transition to Polly's dream worlds are depicted by fading out to red, instead of the traditional fade to black.  The performances are strong, with Polly in particular being an intriguing character, artistic and charming, but also impulsive, socially awkward, clumsy and with a habit of taking anything anyone says to her literally, she could be seen as a forerunner of the "Manic Pixie Dream Girl" trope of the '90s and 2000s.  The film does enter darker territory as it progresses, but it maintains it's charm.  It doesn't always work, it was originally conceived as an hour long TV film, before writer-director Patricia Rozema decided to lengthen it to feature length, and it does feel stretched in places.  However it's certainly worth checking out.    

Sheila McCarthy in I've Heard the Mermaids Singing

X

Year:  2022

Director:  Ti West

Screenplay:  Ti West

Starring:  Mia Goth, Jenna Ortega, Martin Henderson, Brittany Snow, Owen Campbell, Stephen Ure, Scott Mescudi

Running Time:  107 minutes

Genre:  Horror

Texas, 1979:  A group of aspiring filmmakers: actors Maxine Minx (Goth), Bobby Lynne (Snow) and Jackson Hole (Mescudi), producer Wayne Gilroy (Henderson), director RJ Nichols (Campbell) and boom operator Lorraine (Ortega), head to a remote farm where they plan to shoot a pornographic film called The Farmer's Daughter.  They rent a house on the property from the elderly couple who own the farm, but when the couple find out what kind of film they are making, the filmmakers find themselves fighting to survive.

Writer, producer and director Ti West made his name with horror films such as House of the Devil (2009), The Innkeepers (2011) and The Sacrament (2014) and this is his first film since 2016's In a Valley of Violence.  X starts slowly, building up it's characters and their various relationships, but when the gruesome horror starts it doesn't let up.  It works as a homage to the old slasher films of the 1970s such as The Texas Chain Saw Massacre (1974) and Eaten Alive (1976), as well as Psycho (1960).  The '70s ambience works well. maintained by the soundtrack of classic rock songs.  While the film is pretty much tongue in cheek for the most part, it does have something to say about the miseries of getting older and the idea that "youth is wasted on the young".  It's strongly hinted that the couple's attacks are motivated by jealousy at these good-looking young people doing all the things that they would do, if only they could.  Pearl, one half of the elderly couple fixates on Maxine, telling her "I'm what you will become!" Incidentally Pearl is also played by Mia Goth, under very heavy makeup.  It's very well made, with strong performances.  It's worth noting that the film may be too sleazy and gory for some viewers, although the violence is too over the top to be really disturbing.  For fans of the old school slasher films, however, it is a real treat.  It follows the traditional route of these kinds of movies, but throws out enough modern twists on the formula to make it feel fresh and surprising.  It's almost certain to become a mainstay of late-night horror shows in the future.

Mia Goth in X
   

Titane

Year:  2021

Director:  Julia Ducournau

Screenplay:  Julia Ducournau

Starring:  Agathe Rousselle, Vincent Lindon, Garance Marillier, Laïs Salameh

Running Time:  108 minutes

Genre:  Horror

Alexia (Rousselle) is a dancer who has a titanium plate in her skull, following a car accident when she was a child.  Disturbingly obsessed by cars, she is also responsible for a series of murders.  After a particularly brutal killing spree, Alexia finds herself on the run, and hides out by disguising herself and posing as the missing son of fire captain Vincent (Lindon), whose son went missing ten years earlier aged seven.  Alexia's attempts to keep her disguise are further complicated by her advancing pregnancy, and a series of increasingly disturbing and bizarre symptoms.

French writer-director Julia Ducournau made something of a splash with her debut film, the cannibal horror film Raw (2016), and in this, her second film, really comes into her own as one of the most original and striking directors in modern horror.  This surreal and disturbing slice of body horror tips a hat to directors such as David Cronenberg (Videodrome (1983) and Crash (1996)) and Shinya Tsukamoto (Tetsuo: The Iron Man (1987) and Tetsuo II: Body Hammer (1991), but it really is it's own thing.  In her debut film role, journalist and model Agathe Rousselle gives a startling, and mostly dialogue free  performance as the serial killer with a car fetish, alternately terrifying and vulnerable.  Vincent Lindon is also impressive as the sometimes sympathetic and sometimes threatening fire captain who believes Alexia to be his missing son.  This is a tough film to watch at times, it's graphic and some scenes are genuinely shocking, but it is powerful and there are some beautiful as well as bizarre and nightmarish images that you might not be able to shake from your mind, however much you may want to.  There is some humanity and heart to the film and the characters, however terrible their actions, are treated with a degree of compassion, and the whole experience is emotional as well as shocking and disturbing.  

Agathe Rousselle in Titane