THE HAND - THE WORLD OF WONG KAR WAI

This review originally written as part of a full piece on the anthology movie Eros for my Confessions of a Pop Fan blog in 2005.

Anthology films have never caught on. Like comic books, the audience always seems leery of the shorter structure and fearful of the mixed-bag mentality. Still, every once in a while someone tries.

The most recent is Eros, a three-part film about love directed by Wong Kar-Wai, Steven Soderbergh, and Michelangelo Anontioni--all three style heavyweights, all three favorites of mine.

Wong's "The Hand" leads the pack. Some things I had read suggested that Gong Li's character in this is the same as in 2046 [review], but that doesn't appear to be true at first. The self-assured, successful gambler in 2046 bears only a superficial resemblance to the neurotic call girl breaking down in "The Hand." Then again, it may be that she becomes the character we meet in the other film at the end of "The Hand," when all we are told is she's finally getting a shot at success. It could also explain the glove fetish in 2046, and her refusal to divulge her past...so maybe they are the same after all. [2021 note: I clearly misread the ending on this viewing, as watching the extended cut on The World of Wong Kar Wai it was clear to me this time Chen Chang's character was lying. Not sure if it's just missing the point 16 years ago, a product of the original cut, or a fault of the Hong Kong translation.] 

In many Wong Kar-Wai films, people are wanting to connect and can't. Usually social mores are standing in their way, and things they intend to say go unsaid, leaving them woefully separate. In "The Hand," much of the same divisions exist between the hooker, Ms Hua, and her faithful tailor, Zhang (a barely recognizable Chen Chang, whose look here echoes Tony Leung's in 2046). Even when they do reveal their feelings, they can't go all the way: their confessions are played off with a laugh. Yet, in their first meeting, a bond is formed, and a way for them to have a connection. The "human touch" becomes more than greeting-card metaphor, it becomes a real thing. In the first meeting, Ms Hua uses her hand on Zhang, telling him he must know a woman's touch to make truly beautiful women's clothes. She becomes his muse and the great love of his life. Something passes between them every time he measures her for a new outfit. He becomes her protector, be it from eviction or the onslaught of age (oh, the subtle lies of the man with the measuring tape!). Even when they finally kiss, illness prevents it from actually being on the lips--Ms Hua's hand remains the focus of their desire.

 

SELECTED SHORTS VIII - CRITERION CHANNEL

Periodically I will gather together my takes on shorter films I’ve watched, looking at the variety of subjects and styles available; a shorter film also means a smaller budget but generally more creative freedom. Low financial stakes, high creative reward.

You can read the previous columns here: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7

24 Frames Per Century (2013; Italy; 3 minutes): Director Athina Rachel Tsangari builds an intriguing, sorta cute, but slight tribute to the power of cinema, showing the mechanical worries of two film projectors working side by side on a seaside cliff to send images out into the great expanse. Commissioned by the Venice Film Festival, it plays more like an introduction than a stand-alone piece. One wonders what Jean-Luc Godard, whose Contempt [review] Tsangari draws on, would make of this. Would he enjoy the irreverence but dismiss the sentimentality?

Fit (1994; United States; 8 minutes): Another from Athina Rachel Tsangari, this one playful and clever, a surreal examination of one woman’s obsession with making things fit--onto objects, into her body, wherever they need to go. Leading from a dream where her boyfriend’s mouth doles out marbles by the...well, mouthful, into a day that begins with one of her socks shrinking and no longer covering her foot. It’s neurotic and a bit off-kilter, but enjoyable to see what she’ll pick next and where she’ll stick it. The droll narration only adds to the fun.

Baby (1954; United States; 5 minutes): An early work from the recently departed D.A. Pennebaker. This one is simple: the documentarian took his young daughter to the zoo and followed her as she explored. The camera takes in the sights, looking at each animal and also riding the carousel with the same childlike wonder as its star. Very charming.

[Also available on the Don’t Look Back Blu-ray [review].]

Sacrilege (2017; France/Switzerland; 14 minutes): Saoud (Mehdi Djaadi) is top dog in his French neighborhood. He’s got the freshest kicks, the dopest rhymes, and can walk the talk--that is, until he is unexpectedly accused of robbing the mosque where he and his friends worship. Saoud denies the accusation, but slowly the mob grows and stands against him, the words they once hung on now appearing empty.

Director Christophe M. Saber packs a lot of character and drama into Sacrilege. He establishes who his lead is quickly, and then delineates the roles of the social circle that surrounds him. But what is particularly impressive about Sacrilege is how it defies our perception and our narrative prejudices. We have certain expectations when watching a story like this, and each viewer may also come with their own added preconceived notions based on the people involved (hip-hop, Muslim, French...take your pick). That Sacrilege keeps leading us one way, only to flip our position with the next protestation, not only keeps this short film riveting, but forces us to ponder what we just saw.

Pioneer (2011; United States; 16 minutes): A simple concept executed well: a widower (singer/songwriter Will Oldham, also seen in Kelly Reichardt’s Old Joy) tells his four-year-old son (Myles Brooks) a long bedtime story about how their bond has spanned history, with separations and returns and the intrusion of the outside world adding twists along the way. That’s it. It’s a story so contained, you almost can’t believe they didn’t try to break out of it.

But writer/director David Lowery (Ain’t Them Bodies Saints [review]) trusts the magic in his script, and possibly even more the charisma of his lead. Oldham is all-in here, spinning a yarn with conviction and panache. He turns life and death, age and experience, on their heads, to create a world of possibility for his young son, and it’s impossible not to buy in yourself.

N.U. (1948; Italy; 12 minutes)/Sunday in Peking (1956; France; 22 minutes): An early documentary from Michelangelo Antonioni (L’avventura [review], N.U. spends a day following street cleaners around Rome. (The title is the abbreviation of the Italian name for the sanitation service.) There is no real narrative, we hop from worker to worker, with the black-and-white photography giving us a wonderful glimpse of the city as it was then--including how dirty. You’ll marvel at the inconsiderate actions of many citizens, and what a thankless task trying to clean up after them can be. Yet, there is something noble in the workers diligently carrying on.

Far from Rome, we have Peking, here shown in full color by Chris Marker (La jetee [review]. Sunday in Peking is almost like a educational travelogue, showing us street scenes from around the city. What is key to Sunday in Peking beyond the photographic document, though, is Marker’s narration. The project began with the filmmaker as a fanciful child looking at a picture in a book, a site the film crew immediately visits. This is very much filtered though Eastern eyes, albeit one of a foreigner with political sympathies in Mao’s regime (the leader even makes an appearance). It comes off now as both respectful and naïve, as it shows many lovely aspects of culture but questions nothing about what lies beyond the tourism.

[N.U. is also available on the Red Desert Blu-ray [review], which makes sense thematically.]

Fry Day (2017; United States; 16 minutes): A portrait of a modern-day Little Red Riding Hood surrounded by any number of Big Bad Wolves. Lauren (Jordyn DiNatale, Lez Bomb) is an enterprising teenager with a grand idea: on the eve of Ted Bundy’s execution, she takes her Polaroid camera to the place outside the prison where onlookers have gathered and sells photos for $2 a pop. There she runs into Keith (Jimi Stanton, The Punisher), a cute boy from her school. He convinces her to go with him and his friends to get some food, and things start to take a bad turn from there.

The genius of Laura Moss’ short film is how easily it slides the audience into this predicament. It takes a while for us to suspect Keith means harm, we go along just as casually as Lauren--who wears a paper Bundy mask around her neck, lest any of us forget just what some men are capable of. When we start to realize that more is going on here than it seems, it’s too late, we’re trapped in it, and we can only hope it won’t go as bad as it could. Moss and co-writer Brendan J. O’Brien understand these boys and their pack mentality, including having one of the young men seem more smart and thoughtful. He’s the one who would say he was just along for the ride. And Keith’s final act is perhaps the worst manipulation of all. One kind gesture is all he needs to keep a wedge in the door should he ever get back in.

By that point, Fry Day has made us sick to our stomach, exposing how easy victimization of this kind can be, and even how complicit we are in our own dreamy narrative expectations. This makes the last shot all the more devastating. There’s part of us that still wants to trust, when it’s no stretch to think Lauren has no trust left.

Would make a good double feature with Joyce Chopra’s Smooth Talk.

THE EXECUTIONER - #840

Consider it a black comedy “meet cute.” José Luis (Nino Manfredi, I Knew Her Well [review]) is an undertaker charged with transporting the bodies of men killed on death row to the funeral home. After the aged executioner Amedeo (José Isbert) leaves his tools in José Luis’ truck, the undertaker has to chase the old man to his apartment to return them. There, he meets Amedeo’s daughter Carmen (Emma Penella, E amor brujo [review]). The two share an attraction, and bond over their similar predicaments. No one wants to date her because she’s the executioner’s daughter, and women are turned off by him because he’s an undertaker. Love doesn’t exactly blossom, but still, there’s something.

The Executioner is a 1963 feature from Spanish director Luis García Berlanga. Reminiscent of Italian films of the period--and, indeed, featuring a nod to Michelangelo Antonioni, alongside Ingmar Bergman, as if Berlanga wanted to state his influences outright (though I’m thinking more Pietro Germi)--The Executioner is one-part comedy of errors, one part family drama, and then something wholly unique unto itself. Though at first turned off by the little man who would become his father-in-law, José eventually falls completely under Amedeo’s sway. Even the marriage between José and Carmen seems orchestrated by the talkative death merchant. It’s less like they fall in love, and more like they want to make sure not to disappoint Amedeo--or at the very least get him out of their hair.

Our trio is a band of outsiders in Spanish society. No one looks upon Amedeo’s profession fondly. It’s not that there is a political debate anywhere in The Executioner, it’s more that people treat Amedeo as a bad omen. His hands have caused much death, and thus it follows him around. In terms of a family business, José could do worse than to have his father-in-law at one end of the supply chain, but as he’ll soon find out, there’s a lot more bureaucracy to be reckoned with than lives to be taken. When Amedeo’s impending retirement threatens to keep the new family out of a swank two-bedroom apartment, Amedeo pushes José into becoming his successor. The final third of the film is all about José’s reluctant acceptance of the job and his fear that he will actually have to perform his duties. How long can he skate by on pardons and happenstance before he has to kill a man for real?

Much of the humor here is situational, with José serving as the classic straight man pushed into situations far beyond his capacity to handle. What’s interesting about Berlanga’s pairing, however, is how neither José nor Amedeo are played to the extreme. They are both almost straight men. Manfredi never succumbs to hysterics, and though Isbert can be annoying, he doesn’t push it to comic excess. This is not, say, a Bill Murray-style pest whose persistence is both frustrating and charming. The stooped Amedeo is just undeniable. Not exactly bullish, maybe more like a billy goat. He won’t be dissuaded.

This makes for more quiet chuckles than huge guffaws, but that’s okay. The Executioner has a pleasant pace and finds its humor in how deeply the screws get turned on José’s life. Berlanga has a keen eye for character moments--the book signing where the other famous directors are namedropped or the scene where the prison warden casually counsels a panicked José have a sharp satirical age--that cause you to root for each character to turn against their own self-interests. It’s weird, because in a way, that ends up being a kind of support. Call it tough love. Or tough laughter. You’ve got to like a movie with a dark enough sense of humor to have a title song called “The Executioner Twist.” Its use serves as a good indicator of how far apart our core cast is from everyone else--something we also see via the stray details of more normal, frivolous lives going on in the background. The two things come together at the end with the well-dressed young people dancing on a sailboat as they head out to sea, and José Luis departs in the other direction, off to settle into the life that he is now unable to extricate himself from.

The Executioner was shot by Tonino Delli Colli, who also worked with Raffaello Matarazzo, Pier Paolo Pasolini, and later LouisMalle. His black-and-white work for Berlanga is clean and expressive, observant in a Neorealist fashion, but also appropriately tuned in to the humor. For instance, staging the scene where José and his fellow undertaker pick up their paychecks while wearing tri-corner hats and 18th-century uniforms from inside the accountant’s booth allows for a more visual gag. Both of them peeking through the tiny windows trying to charm the paymaster to hand over their checks makes them look simultaneously like strange intruders and also relics mounted on a wall. The costumes inspire further humor in the next scene when a nervous José tries to calm a fight out of fear one of the squabblers will get killed--and he’ll have to execute his killer.

Which he’ll eventually become comfortable with doing. All of Berlanga’s characters in The Executioner serve their roles, be it to society or to family, and the greater message here is to suggest we can’t help but be who we are, even when others might not be so keen on it. In the end, José and Carmen and Amedeo and the new baby make a solid unit that supports one another and gets by as best they can. It’s just that sometimes José needs a little more coaxing to get with the program.

This disc was provided by the Criterion Collection for purposes of review.

L'AVVENTURA (Blu-ray) - #98

For me, I think what is most compelling about Michelangelo Antonioni’s challenging 1960 drama L’Avventura is how it so effectively upends the mystery genre to serve the director’s own thematic purpose.

More than fifty years before Gone Girl, Antonioni crafted an oblique narrative about a young woman bored to death with her future husband and the state of love in general who in some manner orchestrates her own disappearance. Anna (Lea Massari) is a rich man’s daughter, engaged to Sandro (Gabriele Ferzetti), and yet disconnected from her own privileged existence. She tells her father she has no intention of marrying the man, but then makes her friend Claudia (Monica Vitti) wait outside while she has an afternoon quickie with him. The three of them then join other friends on an overnight boat trip to remote waters. While swimming, Anna lies about seeing a shark, presumably to see how everyone will react. She only confides this secret to Claudia. Thus, the other girl is understandably suspicious when Anna goes missing later that day. The travelers have docked at a desolate island. There is no one else on it with them, only an empty shack, and no other way off. Yet, when it’s time to go, Anna has disappeared without a trace. Someone thought maybe they heard another boat, but there is no real proof.

And so L’Avventura becomes a manhunt--at least, after a fashion. The police come to investigate, accusations are thrown, with the fiancé being the first suspect. Sandro and Claudia lead the charge--though separately whenever possible, Claudia does not trust him--and they remain the most dedicated, following whatever leads come up, pursuing a trail that may not be there. It’s along this search that they also derail their own efforts. Sandro kisses Claudia, she rebukes him...and yet, she is drawn to him. Eventually, their attraction takes over. The investigation becomes a romantic getaway. By the time the pair rejoin their other friends--who, bored and unaffected, have carried on with their perpetual holiday--they are behaving as a married couple, alternately bickering and being affectionate. Claudia hates herself just a little; Sandro, as ever, is nonplussed.

But ain’t that just like a man? At least in the way Antonioni depicts Italian society. The men are driven by lust, emerging in the streets as one predatory pack whenever a woman is left to walk unescorted. It happens first with the young American of questionable morals (Dorothy De Poliolo)--who herself claims to be lost and could be seen as a double for Anna--and then when Claudia decides to wait outside when Sandro goes into a shop where Anna had possibly been seen. It’s a reversal of the earlier scene, when Antonioni and cameraman Aldo Scavarda artfully framed Claudia through the crack in the curtains in the room where Sandro and Anna are having their tryst, the audience peering out at the girl peering in, as if perhaps she desires to be up there with them. She is isolated in both scenes, but in the later instance, she becomes the object of sexual craving rather than rebuked. And its Sandro who is now outside observing, witnessing the threat from inside a doorway. Of course, it’s significant that this is immediately after the two of them have made love; the wild animals sense the change.

It’s a split that runs through all the couples in L’Avventura. Anna is not the only one who finds the male/female relationship wanting. (It’s telling that she is reading both F. Scott Fitzgerald’s Tender Is the Night, a novel about adultery and the disappointment of marriage, alongside the Bible when she disappears; it’s one of God’s few appearances in the movie, faith is as absent as true love.) The wealthy older woman Patrizia (Esmeralda Ruspoli) tells her would-be paramour Raimondo (Lelio Luttazzi) that she was not made for love, and she rebuffs and belittles his advances. He, in turn, proves he can’t handle delicate things, dropping the antique crockery found on the island, a symbol of a lost civilization that the bored socialites argue over. Who owns it? How would you use it? Even knowing where it comes from makes you the object of ridicule. Why be smart or concerned about things long since dead?

Maybe this is why the woman who is made fun of for allegedly wanting to take the pot and put flowers in it is the one to truly transgress. Giulia (Dominique Blanchar) at first seems like the sweetest of the crew, but when Claudia rejoins her friends, she finds Giulia carrying on with a young painter. She is defiant about it, challenging others to judge her, even rubbing it in her husband’s face. The sweet has been made to run sour. There are no happy endings in love stories, only prison sentences. Which is why Anna gets out before she is locked in. Ironically, by doing so, she dooms her best friend to that same fate. Claudia and Sandro are bound together more by their shared concern over Anna’s vanishing then they are any true affection. The final images of L’Avventura show them unable to separate, subject to their roles (he the philanderer, she the long-suffering devotee), and filled with despair. By all evidence, there is nothing else out there for them because nothing is all that modern man truly has.

It’s been several years since I last saw L’Avventura. I wrote about it the last time, too, in connection with a showing of The Big Sleep to promote my comic book You Have Killed Me. It’s funny how much more obtuse the movie becomes with distance. (Perhaps I am remembering L’eclisse more?) Watching it again, I was struck by how much of a standard mystery the movie really is. Except for the missing woman, there are no strange goings on, no tricky editing or confounding digressions. Sandro and Claudia follow a pretty strict path, going from one clue to the next, the narrative adopting somewhat of an episodic structure. This makes it no less intriguing, though; on the contrary, the simplicity only heightens the tension, leaving wider spaces for the viewer to ruminate on Antonioni’s existential commentary, which he doles out sparingly. Each incident is almost like a prompt, a short philosophical riddle for the monastic cinephile to meditate on.

Monica Vitti proves a marvelous vessel for delivering these messages. She appears innocent and empathetic, truly curious and caring, defying her glamorous image, more like the blonde girl next door to Lea Massari’s more calculating woman of the world. It fits noir conventions, they are analogues to Rhonda Fleming and Jane Greer in Out Of The Past, though they are sadly stuck without a reliable Robert Mitchum. Gabriele Ferzetti makes for interesting casting. He appears too old for both of them and physically unremarkable. Not exactly handsome, you wouldn’t notice him without a spotlight. Not the way you would Marcello Mastroianni or Alain Delon, the stars of Antonioni’s next two movies, which form a thematic trilogy (and which I will be revisiting next).

This might be over rationalizing, but it’s possible that my seeing L’Avventura more clearly has as much to do with the new restoration as it does time. The 4K digital upgrade used for this new Blu-ray presents the film in a way that far surpasses any prior release (my screengrabs, for the record, are from Criterion’s 2001 DVD). The clarity with which one can now view the black-and-white landscapes of Antonioni’s movie is quite something. The desolation felt when stranded out at sea, or how small Vitti and Ferzetti appear in the final moments, is illustrated not just by the widescreen framing, but also the depth of detail that is now evident in high definition. That ocean goes on for miles, and the cliffs and balconies give way to a bottomless view. By contrast, the interiors are confining, whether the hull of a boat or a hotel room. Antonioni’s sad figures are at once trapped by their surroundings and humbled by just how insignificant they appear within them.

As an audience, we are left to feel the same way. I can’t imagine the added effect of seeing it in a theater, of the images writ large. The vastness of Antonioni’s vision would blanket the auditorium. L’Avventura is a haunting motion picture, teasing out answerless riddles while making us feel all the more lost for the fact that the lack of any solution is somehow a fault of who we are.

This disc was provided by the Criterion Collection for purposes of review. The stills shown are taken from the standard-definition DVD release and not the Blu-ray under discussion.

THREE FILMS BY ROBERTO ROSSELLINI STARRING INGRID BERGMAN: JOURNEY TO ITALY - #675

My current frontrunner for the best movie of 2013 is Richard Linklater's Before Midnight [review], an emotionally turbulent, challenging movie about a long-tem couple who unexpectedly find themselves at a crossroads where they are questioning whether or not their relationship is worth continuing. It's a film that earns all of the feelings in engenders. Not unlike its spiritual predecessor, Roberto Rossellini's 1954 movie Journey to Italy (a.k.a. Voyage to Italy).

The director's crowning collaboration with Ingrid Bergman could serve as a sort of omen: their relationship would eventually disintegrate for good. Here, though, we find the pair perfectly in sync. Bergman plays Katherine Joyce, an upper-class wife of a British businessman. Alex (George Sanders) has recently inherited some property from his uncle, some land and a fancy home in Naples. Alex and Katherine have gone to Italy to sell it, and while they are away, do a little vacationing. Alex is a workaholic and it's hard to get him out of the office, which may explain why, now that Katherine has managed to get some alone time with him, they realize they don't know each other at all.

Ennui and jealousy make for a nasty combination. Husband and wife are bored with each other and the decades-long conversation they've been having. Yet, as is usually the case in such situations, they don't want anyone else being bored by their spouse, that is their right alone. And so it is that Alex begins to resent a dead poet whose verse has outlined Katherine's Italian itinerary. Though this kind of suspicion angers Katherine, she becomes guilty of it herself when they happen to run into a woman Alex has known previously. She is on a group vacation with some friends, and Alex pays the ladies in the traveling party extra attention when they are all out having drinks. Katherine says that she never knew that her hubby was so interested in women. Translation: why aren't you that interested in me?

After a few snippy arguments, the pair goes their separate ways to finish out the trip. Alex goes to Capri to catch up with his friend, while Katherine stays behind in Naples to continue to tour the historical spots and look at the ancient relics. She also spends her time drinking in the local color and observing the people. I was reminded a bit of Sofia Coppola's Lost in Translation [review]. Ingrid Bergman wandering about and soaking up the culture has echoes in how Scarlett Johansson spies on ceremonies and customs in Japan while her husband is off pursuing actresses; likewise, George Sanders is gruff and sarcastic, and while not as loveable as Bill Murray, his flirtations with familiar ladies in foreign lands is not that different than Bob Harris.

It all points to a long tradition in world cinema. Many directors have portrayed troubled marriages via wayward nights and heated conversation, be it Ingmar Bergman's prolonged breakdown in Scenes from a Marriage or Michelangelo Antonioni's sharply focused La notte. While plenty of folks lately have been invoking Godard's famous line about all you needing to make a movie is a girl and a gun, Rossellini and those who followed in his footsteps all do without the gun. The girl and a guy provide plenty of drama without firearms ever getting involved.

Perhaps it's because he loved her that Rossellini tips the scales a little in Ingrid Bergman's favor in this film. Katherine is given an internal monologue that, despite its vitriol, humanizes her to a greater degree than Alex. Couple that with her more demonstrable abilities to empathize with her fellow man, and she seems far less beastly than her husband. Alex's self-recrimination is born of failure and rejection, and the standards he nearly sacrifices to try to reclaim some of his wild oats are troubling--even to him. “Beastly” may not be the right word, actually. Alex is less likable, but he's no less human. Sanders is also an actor on par with Bergman, and despite the clash of wills, both performers manage to make the Joyces seem like a real couple. Despite their differences, despite the spite, they fit. It's evident anytime they are in the car, but particularly in their penultimate conversation, when it appears they will call it quits. (Again, automobiles make for a regular staging ground for arguments. The Before Midnight disagreement begins in a car, also while the couple are on vacation; and let's not forget the hot-tempered, cold-blooded exchanges between Audrey Hepburn and Albert Finney in Stanley Donen's exceptional Two for the Road .)

As a conclusion to this cycle of films, the trio of Ingrid Bergman vehicles sometimes known as “The Solitude Trilogy,” Rossellini brings it all back around to Stromboli [review]. He does so aesthetically by his incorporation of real locations and real people to the drama, and how her new surroundings affect his leading lady. He also connects it back to their initial collaboration in how he handles the ending. The fate of the Joyces' conjugal union is decided by a religious epiphany, by a miracle--though in this case, not one that happens to Ingrid Bergman. Rather, it happens in her vicinity and threatens to swallow her. It is a human volcano, rather than the literal one in Stromboli; the people who move against her confirm her truth by trying to sweep her away a la Europe '51 [review]. There's a directness to how the director handles it in Journey to Italy that makes it more powerful than the endings of its predecessors. In Journey, the actions of the characters take over, and there is no need for further explanation. The intense feelings that power their decisions speak for themselves.

Journey to Italy plays Saturday, July 6, at 8:45pm, again on Sunday, July 7, at 8pm, and finally on Monday, July 8, at 7pm, as part of the NW Film Center's presentation of "The Solitude Trilogy." View the full schedule here.

LOVE ON THE RUN - (THE ADVENTURES OF ANTOINE DOINEL) - #188

Love on the Run could have just as easily been called "Coming Home to Roost," but the film's title is not merely meant to be descriptive of this, the final entry in Francois Truffaut's Antoine Doinel series, but of the entire cycle of films. Antoine (Jean-Pierre Léaud) is always running. Away from one relationship--be it his mother, his girlfriend, or his wife--and toward another.

The meaning becomes clear early on when Antoine is spied sprinting from the courthouse by his one-time object of affection, Colette (co-writer Marie-France Pisier). He has just finalized his divorce to Christine (Claude Jade), and Antoine is running to get to work. The destination is immaterial, however; as Colette says, same old Antoine, always on the run.

Truffaut apparently declared Love on the Run a mistake, and he even said he knew it was a bad idea even while they were shooting it. He couldn't have been more wrong, not at any time. Love on the Run is a supremely satisfying conclusion to the cinematic life of the director's most famous avatar. It is a culmination of all the romantic yearnings he has been feeling since The 400 Blows [review], and an affirmation of the classic cinema that informed a young Antoine and inspired his author.

In this film, released in 1979, nearly a decade after Bed and Board [review] (though the film intimates it's only been three years), Antoine has finally left Christine and is carrying on an affair with a young girl who works in a record shop. Sabine (Dorothée) is a happy-go-lucky kind of girl, not afraid to tell Antoine what she wants. Which is good, since he is a figure in transition and needs some direction. He has published the novel we saw him laboring over in Bed and Board, but he still works at a printing press to make ends meet. The divorce has been a long time coming, and the pair still share a child. The paperwork and judge's approval doesn't really make it feel like time is closing.

This sense of emotional upheaval is only exacerbated by the return of Colette, the girl who preceded Christine (see my review of Antoine and Colette and Stolen Kisses for that history). She is a lawyer now and single, as well. She is dating the owner of a bookstore (Daniel Mesguich). She also has her own troubles. She and Antoine share old times while on a clandestine train ride. Truffaut cuts in lengthy scenes of the other Doinel films, as well as incorporating some material from Day for Night. Love on the Run is a cinematic clip show, a review of all that has come before. We see the pieces of Antoine's past laid out like a romantic puzzle, complete with memories added by both Colette and Christine. It has an analogue in the here-and-now puzzle Antoine has been trying to put together: he found Sabine because of a torn-up photograph. The identity of the mystery girl that he reassembled demanded to be answered. Is it fate that has brought all these people together? Has all that has happened truly been to push Antoine toward Sabine?

Well, the answer is probably obvious, but I will leave that to you. I will say that at the heart of every cynic lies a romantic, and Truffaut has perfectly captured the doubts and fears of those of us who want to believe in true love and found a way to give us the emotional thrill we were hoping for but would never accept outright. My affection for Antoine swelled in this one. He is even more single-minded and pedantic than ever, but Léaud makes his lecturing charming. "My finger is raised, so let me tell you a thing or two about love."

I wish the end to my own story, the one that led to this project and was described way back in my write-up of The 400 Blows, had as interesting a conclusion. Or even one as meaningful. I've strived for similar synergy in my fiction. My novel The Everlasting could just as easily borrow the title from Antoine Doinel's, Les salades des l'amour, or Love and Other Troubles. The cover depicts my own version of Antoine's central problem: there's a girl in front of him, so why is he looking somewhere else.

But no, like Antoine, my life is not as interesting as my fiction, so when I write novels, embellishment is required. There is no such embellishment here, except for unintentional tricks of memory or the vagaries of perception.

Back in the summer of 2007, the girl from the video store whom I had nicknamed Truffaut was back in Portland on a break from school. I had stopped working at the store, but I had run into her at her summer job at a restaurant and we caught up on things. Since I was reviewing films, I suggested she should maybe come to a screening with me. The next one was Steve Buscemi's remake of Theo van Gogh's Interview. It was in the middle of the day. We met at the theater, and we both dressed nice. So far so good.

The film was decent [you can read my review], and afterward we decamped to the bar next door to have some drinks and talk about it. We spent a good amount of time chatting. It was fun. I was smitten. In the interest of full disclosure, I probably had a beverage too many, but I was nervous and I wasn't used to drinking during the day. This was a major factor in me not trying to kiss her when I walked her home. I knew there was maybe another fellow in the picture, and I had decided I didn't care if there was, but that probably compounded what I believe to be my mistake. If I had made a move then and there, maybe I'd have done the damage needed to replace him. The problem was, being a little tipsy, I wasn't feeling physically confident, and I felt a bad or fumbling kiss would be worse than none at all, so I didn't take my shot. I did, however, suggest we meet the following Friday when she got off work. Truffaut agreed. I was to get in touch that day and firm up plans.

Friday came, and when I called, I got voicemail. I can't recall if I did a follow-up call or a text, but no answer ever came. I knew Truffaut was leaving on an end-of-summer getaway in a manner of days. There wasn't much of a window.

While she was away in whatever tropical paradise she had scheduled an escape to, Michelangelo Antonioni died. He was someone we had discussed. I texted her and said, "Michelangelo Antonioni died, and you're on a beach somewhere. How is that fair?" Or something to that effect. I may have added myself into it. "You're there, and I'm not."

That was it. It was the last communication between either of us. Not unlike some of Antoine's angry letters to Colette and Christine, I might add.

Though, the story has a last anecdote, its Stolen Kisses moment, a brief encounter after time had passed. I went out to the movies with another girl, a friend of mine who is quite lovely. It was a winter afternoon,  and as we were leaving the theater, Truffaut and some other guy were heading in. We said "hi," and when she was past, my friend asked who she was. I told her. My friend had been aware of the summer fumblings, and so for her she finally got to put a face on the stories. Even though my outing that chilly day was not a romantic one, Truffaut did not know that, and I hope there was some small pang of jealousy, a brief rivalry, a nagging doubt that she had made a mistake and was with the wrong guy.

"Because let's face it...wasn't she?" he typed, but then realized there was no dignified way to add a wink to this without resorting to an emoticon, so he decided for something far more self-reflexive instead. Wherever he is, Antoine Doinel probably approves.

CONTEMPT - #171

“I love you totally, tenderly, tragically.” - Paul

Romance is easy; breaking-up is what’s hard to do. Jean-Luc Godard’s 1963 masterpiece Contempt (Le Mepris) is my favorite of all his films. It is his most emotionally raw, a carefully composed examination of marital failure, ego, and hubris. Legend is that Godard hated making the film and the American producers who hired him hated what he gave them. Yet, there is so much about that history, about the contentious nature of the set, that informs what happens onscreen, better circumstances would have only harmed the art. It’s a movie that isn’t just about the death of love, but also about the implications of artistic compromise and how such decisions inform the personal lives of the artists. It’s a movie about making movies, rife with mythological allusions. Within its context, the gods are cinema itself, and everything else is man. All too fragile, brittle man.

Contempt opens with two disparate sequences, each laying out specific elements of Godard’s mis-en-scene. First, a “behind-the-scenes” shot of cinematographer Raoul Coutard at work, filming a woman walking (the script girl played by Georgia Moll), following her with his camera, riding a track toward the viewer while Godard reads the opening credits aloud.

The second bit is a cataloguing of star Brigitte Bardot’s many attributes. She lies on a bed naked, in character as Camille, with her onscreen husband Paul (Michel Piccoli). She is vulnerable and insecure about her body, in direct opposition to our perception of the sexbomb and her reputation. In truth, the scene was Godard’s capitulation to the producers, who wanted a little sizzle to help them sell the feature. It is itself an artistic compromise, much like the ones Paul will give in to as the film progresses. The changing colors and the static filming of the scene will later be echoed in the images we see of Greek statuary. Bardot is our movie goddess. She is so revered, that merely half an hour into the film, Godard creates a montage of flashbacks reviewing everything she’s done in the previous 30 minutes. Just in case you needed reminding.

The “plot” of Contempt is rather bare. Paul is a writer who is hired by an American movie producer to rewrite an adaptation of Homer’s The Odyssey. Jeremiah Prokosch (Jack Palance) is an uncultured schlock peddler. Fritz Lang appears as himself, playing the director whom Jeremiah (or Jerry) has hired and who is now proving too artistically difficult. Jerry wants more sex and death, Lang wants to deal with the grand themes of humanity.

The story of these characters begins to parallel that of Odysseus and Penelope and the rest in a small, confined way. When Jerry meets Camille, he immediately sets his sights on her. His view of women is about as low as his respect for classic literature. His theory about The Odyssey is that Penelope cheated on Odysseus while he was away. Jerry keenly perceives that despite being there physically, Paul checked out a long time ago; thus, Camille is the Penelope waiting to be taken. As the script development progresses, Paul reveals himself in how he alters Jerry’s theory: Odysseus left for war and doesn’t rush home because he was sick of his wife. If she was unfaithful, all the better, it only proves him right. When Odysseus returns and kills his rivals, it’s really just a matter of protecting his territory and asserting his masculine rights (those terms should likely be in quotes).

For as negative a view of womanhood as this presents, I think there is a real case to be made for Contempt as a feminist movie. If we are to take Lang as the voice of reason, as well as the mouthpiece for the director, he is the only one to stand up for Penelope, and he is also kindest to Camille. In truth, Godard’s portrayal of the wife is entirely sympathetic to her problems, even if he does frame her predicament in somewhat old-fashioned terms. She is neglected and rebuked by her husband, whom she wishes would take a more traditional, masculine role in their relationship. Throughout Contempt, she is pushing him to make a decision, any decision. The worst of these times comes right after she first meets Jerry and the American contrives to separate her from Paul. She practically begs her husband not to send her off alone with him. She wants him to man up and show her that she is valuable and desired; he dismisses her instead, and when they are reunited, she appears shamed and disappointed. I know many might debate the quality of Brigitte Bardot’s acting ability, but her performance in Contempt is subtle, emotional, and mostly interior. She never really owns up to her infidelity, but she never has to: we see what she has done and gone through entirely in how she looks at her spouse.

Piccoli’s performance is just as tricky. We are never sure how much he knows or even suspects. When he arrives at Jerry’s, his story of the taxicab collision that delayed his arrival seems strangely apropos. The detailing of the car crash, in both word and gesture, is strikingly suggestive. It actually wraps Jerry’s preoccupation with sex and death into one convenient symbol, particularly when you consider what the anecdote is actually foreshadowing.

“If you love me, just be quiet.” - Camille

The centerpiece of the film immediately follows the indiscreet incident. It’s a long argument back at the couple’s apartment. The conversation lasts more than half an hour and consists entirely of the pair sniping back and forth, raising suspicions, dancing around truths, and exposing cruelties. Narratively, Godard frames much of this in film noir conventions, largely to cater to the image that Paul wants to create for himself. As we will discover, he is an intellectual bully playing at being a tough guy, and it’s telling that the one moment of true expressive honesty he has in the argument is when he strikes Camille. It’s an old-fashioned movie moment, the gangster slapping his moll. To fit in with Paul’s fantasies and also to change herself, Camille puts on a black wig and tries to be his femme fatale, but Paul rejects her; in turn, she dismantles his pose. His fedora and cigar are meant to mimic Dean Martin in Some Came Running, but she sees that it’s a costume only. He is a compromised man: he used to be a crime novelist, but now he writes movies, except when he decides he is too good for movies, Paul pretends that he has a more erudite career as a playwright. (Ironically, we can see Camille as being the more successful movie mimic: her black wig causes her to resemble Godard’s then wife Anna Karina, particularly as the fallen woman in Vivre sa vie [review].)

The argument ends with a particularly devastating exchange. In answer to Paul’s suggestion that they “make love,” Camille strips and throws herself down on their couch. She tells him to take her, but to make it quick. In the time between her begrudged offer and his refusal, Godard shows us another montage: a capsule of their whole marriage and confirmation that it is indeed falling apart. It’s a brilliant trick of time. The fight is drawn out and long, presented without break; it eclipses the whole of the rest of their union. It’s also a trick that is almost purely visual, marrying disembodied voices to structurally abstract visuals. A lot can be divined from the Coutard and Godard’s framing throughout the film. Watch how the characters come together and move apart, how physical objects divide them, or how the camera swings from one lover to the other--there is something indecisive about a lot of it, like maybe if they would just sit still, they could fix this.

It’s this argument scene that keeps bringing me back to Contempt, and why, again, it is my favorite of Godard’s films. The way the dialogue flows here is so natural, so lacking in pretension or contrivance, it never loses its rawness, no matter how many times you see it. I took on this particular viewing as research for a novel I am working on, as I am wrestling with similar themes of self-compromise and the damage lovers inflict on one another. What most impressed me about the movie this time around was not just the honesty of the writing, but how Godard lays the larger tapestry of myth and storytelling over the top of it, while also weaving the threat of violence throughout.

“Death is no resolution.” - Fritz Lang

Godard teases us with a gun early in the film. A pistol appears at Paul and Camille’s apartment, and it shows up again later in the back half of the story when the couple travels with the film production to Capri. Knowing as we do that Paul believes Odysseus asserted himself by killing Penelope’s suitors, what then can we infer that he will do to the man that made him a cuckold? In truth, Godard is subverting the old Chekhov rule about what happens when a gun appears in the first act of a drama. In what may be the cruelest cut of all, Camille takes the bullets out of the revolver before she leaves Paul, rendering him impotent. After his second abandoning of her, she leaves him with no third option.

Here, too, Fritz Lang remains the voice of clarity. He believes there is no possible good outcome from a crime of passion, and he sees altering the purity of Homer’s story as akin to messing with the shared values and principles that define us as something other than animal. As the resolution of Contempt bears out, reckless decisions bring destruction. Fate can’t be averted.

It’s funny, but when I worked at a video store from 2004 to 2007, Godard was often a topic of discussion. It was a small, privately owned store and it had sections for specific directors, so we had a clientele with tastes slightly more adventurous than what was just new or popular. Naturally, opinions about Godard were all over the place, but it wasn’t uncommon for people to tell me that they thought Contempt was boring. I find this ironic, because on the face of it, it’s one of Godard’s most accessible movies. Its narrative is the most simplistic, there is an obvious three-act structure, and its situations are easily relatable. Perhaps without the varnish of the usual Godard technique, without his playfulness and pranksterism, the presentation was too naked, the heft of the assault too much to carry. Belmondo in Breathless [review] can play at being Bogart and get shot down in the street, and we never forget it’s a movie; in Contempt, no shot is ever fired, not from Piccoli’s gun or at him, and so there is nothing to break the illusion that this is real pain and real life.

“Like Brigitte Bardot 
In Godard's Le Mepris 
I can't love you enough 
To make you complete 
You appear in my dreams 
With some new courtier 
You need me there to see 
What you need to convey”

 - Pete Townshend, “It’s Not Enough” (recorded by the Who, 2006)

My collaborator and friend Joëlle Jones did the above drawing for a collector. He specifically requested Brigitte Bardot from Contempt. I think it turned out pretty awesome. You should check Joëlle's work out over at her blog.

* Other possible entries in this particularly happy-go-lucky film festival are Mike Nichols’ Closer, Michelangelo Antonioni’s La Notte, and Sam Mendes’ Revolutionary Road [review].