ONLY LOVERS LEFT ALIVE - CRITERION CHANNEL

This review was originally written for DVDTalk.com in 2014.

Jim Jarmusch has made a vampire movie, and despite this surprising detour into genre, it's kind of the Jim Jarmuschiest. Your enjoyment of it will likely depend on how you react to that phrase, provided it means anything to you at all. I'm a fan of the filmmaker, and so for me Only Lovers Left Alive was pretty wondrous to behold. It's got the spirit of old rock 'n' roll mixed with romantic poetry and gothic gloom, powered by Einstein's theory of spooky action. It should come as no surprise. Jim is a man who made a film with Screamin' Jay Hawkins, after all. He knows for spooky.

Only Lovers Left Alive is a tale of two draculas: the worldly literature aficionado Eve (Tilda Swinton, Michael Clayton [review]) and her brooding soulmate Adam (Tom Hiddleston, The Avengers [review]). Their love spans the centuries. They have seen man--or zombies, as they ironically call the everyday norms--rise and fall, experienced cultural shifts and artists renaissances. One of their best friends is Christopher Marlowe (John Hurt, Alien [review], Melancholia [review]), the playwright, who didn't die in ye olde England, but was transformed. In Jarmusch's world, vampires are creative sophisticates whose super powers include an affinity with nature that allows them to identify flora and fauna and test the age of objects just by touching them.

They are also subject to their thirst, and a regular intake of blood is required or they will quickly deteriorate and die. These creatures of the night must find their sustenance from more legit, verifiable channels in the 21st Century, however; disease and toxins have contaminated the population and random draws from untested subjects could mean death once and for all. This and many other things have led Adam to despair. He hides in a house in Detroit, recording dark rock dirges and collecting old guitars and old records. Seeing that her love is in a dangerous funk, Eve leaves her own home in Tangiers to be with him. Amour is quickly rekindled, and undead angst begins to get sorted.

Jarmusch has never had much use for conventional plot, and the happenings of Only Lovers Left Alive hearken back to his second feature, Stranger Than Paradise [review], in that it is an episodic depiction of individuals in stasis looking to be in flux. There is no maguffin or instigating incident or other screenwriting buzzword; rather, there are two people who have been apart and we see their average routines and how they come together. Some of the best scenes are with Adam and Eve on their own, laying together on the couch, playing ancient 45s. Swinton is at her most weird and wonderful, buzzing with the electricity of life, more alive than the mortals who supply her nutrition. Hiddleston makes for a good companion, even if he is just working a variation of his Loki character from the Thor movies--or at least the sad adolescent side of Loki, minus the trickster. (Which is fine. I've kind of grown weary of the actor's omnipresent fan service playing Cool Geek on the internet.)

The disruptive agent here is instead Eve's little sister, Ava (Mia Wasikowska, Stoker [review]), who breezes in to cause trouble and, well, doesn't so much breeze out as she is chased away. If Eve's life was arrested at a crucial moment of maturity, Ava was "turned" at a juncture where she would be the eternal brat. It's fun watching Wasikowska let her hair down. Her specialty may be sad and strange, but she shows there are still more possibilities for her if a casting director wants to get ambitious.

Only Lovers Left Alive is Jarmusch's first film to be shot on digital. He and cinematographer Yorick Le Saux (I Am Love [review]) find a satisfying aesthetic together, two parts Nick Cave music video, one part late 1960s album cover. The movie opens with a virtuoso montage mimicking a spinning record. Another sequence shortly after links the daily blood ritual of its vampiric trio by emphasizing the orgasmic, drug-like effects of the liquid life. The movements are more beautiful and vibrant than we might otherwise expect from Jarmusch, and it suits him. The freedom of these moments provides a nice contrast to the more drab and earthbound lives of the day dwellers.

As long as there have been seedy nightclubs and artists and hipsters to enjoy them, these folks have been referred to as creatures of the night and other such haunted sobriquets. When it comes down to it, even for all the creative enhancements Jarmusch lends the bloodsucking mythos, Only Lovers Left Alive is really their story. Swinton and Hiddleston are every cool couple you've seen walking home at 3 a.m., impervious to last call and the stink of cigarettes, still hearing their own music long after the band has loaded their equipment into the van. As it turns out, we were right all along: they are cooler than the rest of us, more in love, more in tune with the harmonics of the universe. And hell, if they're draculas, too, so be it. I'm down.

GHOST DOG: THE WAY OF THE SAMURAI - #1057

 

Is there a more elegant genre mash-up than Jim Jarmusch’s turn-of-the-century film Ghost Dog: The Way of the Samurai? It’s more than just a marriage of mob and samurai movies, it’s an urban drama about a neighborhood, touching on both race and class in its depictions of Blacks and Italians. And on top of that, it embraces hip-hop, with RZA from the Wu-Tang Clan both providing a groundbreaking score and showing up in a cameo. 

 

Even with all that, it’s light as a feather. Ghost Dog has the usual laconic Jarmusch feel, despite scenes of incredibly precise action. For fans of Jean-Pierre Melville, you will see his influence all over this, from the snippets of philosophy taken from the Hagakure warrior’s code to the calculated assassinations Ghost Dog performs. Quiet, patient, and deadly. 

 

 

The origin story of Ghost Dog is a classic trope. As a young man, Ghost Dog (played with a calm forcefulness by Forest Whitaker) is rescued from a beating by gangster Louie (John Tormey). Over the next several years, Ghost Dog devoted his life to training to be a samurai assassin, shedding material things, living on a rooftop with his pigeons (shades of On the Waterfront). That is the backstory, at least, told in short, repetitious flashbacks. The here and now of it features Ghost Dog acting as Louie’s retainer, serving in the background, killing people Louie needs killed. Ghost Dog has done this twelve times perfectly, but at the start of the film, we see the thirteenth go wrong: when performing a hit on a gangster (Richard Portnow) who is sleeping with the boss’ daughter, the warrior is surprised to find the daughter (Tricia Vessey) is in the room. She was supposed to be gone. 

 

Of course, Ghost Dog does not harm the girl, but the indiscretion raises the ire of her old man (Cliff Gorman), not just because his baby girl was in harm’s way, but also because this leaves a loose end that can trace back to his having ordered a hit on a made man. Thus, Ghost Dog must be removed from the equation. 

 

Things don’t go that way, naturally. Ghost Dog is more than a match for the aging, overweight mafia killers. There is a subtle change of power at work in the New York of Jarmusch. Young Black men work the streets stealthily. Ghost Dog has compatriots everywhere. We never see them in action, but they are acknowledged. They have moved in. The Italian mob, on the other hand, could be seen as aging out: ineffective, comical, caricature. Jarmusch doesn’t lean on it, but it’s there. 

 

What’s also there is the smaller world of misfits that Ghost Dog relaxes in. His best friend is a French ice cream man (Isaach De Bankolé) who plays chess with Ghost Dog. They converse, despite having no common language--the running gag being that they often say the same things. There is also a little girl, Pearline (Camille Winbush), whom Ghost Dog trades books with. She is like a small version of him, and indeed, Ghost Dog fans have been waiting for a Pearline sequel just as much as Kill Bill fans have been clamoring for the child of Vernita Green to grow up and take revenge. 

 

See? There’s a lot going on. But it never seems like too much. Not under Jarmusch’s care. His hand is steady, his approach both easy and concise. He knows each move he needs to make, but he also isn’t afraid to breathe, to let a moment be loose. It’s a pretty impressive act, all said and done, and one could argue he’s applying all the lessons of the Hagakure to his modern Way of the Samurai, being nothing and being everything at once. 

 

Fun aside, back in 1999, I was editor in chief of Oni Press and we were asked by the studio releasing Ghost Dog: The Way of the Samurai to do a one-off comic they could use as promotion. My business partner and publisher, Joe Nozemack, had the great idea of hiring Scott Morse (then doing our book Soulwind, currently a story man at Pixar and recently the author of Dugout: The Zombie Steals Home) to bring to life one of Ghost Dog’s perfect hits. We never interacted with Jim Jarmusch, alas, but it’s still an effort we are all very proud of. You can still find it here and there if you care to seek it out. 

 

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

35 SHOTS OF RUM - CRITERION CHANNEL

This review was originally written for DVDTalk.com in 2010.

"We have everything here. Why go looking elsewhere?"

The latest film from Claire Denis, 35 Shots of Rum, trains its lens on the tenants of a French apartment building. At the center of the interpersonal drama is the old subway engineer Lionel (Alex Descas, Coffee and Cigarettes), who lives alone with his daughter Jo (Mati Diop) and who has an occasional affair with the upstairs neighbor, a taxi driver named Gabrielle (Nicole Dogué). Gabrielle pines for Lionel, but he is distant and untouchable, in charge of his own space and his emotions. It runs in the family. Another upstairs neighbor, Noé (Grégoire Colin, Nénette et Boni) has a thing for Jo, but she maybe sees a little too much of her dad in him. Ironically, the young drifter would settle down if maybe the girl would just give him the nod.

Of such simple stuff are great dramas often made, and 35 Shots of Rum observes these regular lives with an elegance and insight that ensures every small act assumes great importance. A chance encounter can alter everything, even if just for a day. A thoughtless action can break a heart, a minor gesture can invoke jealousy. The film is regularly compared to Ozu in the way it shows modern living and the schism between young and old, and that comparison couldn't be more justified. At the same time, Denis makes the genre (is Ozu a genre now?) her own by updating it. Her eye is a tad more cynical, and her character situation reversed. Rather than the older generation failing to understand the changes of the newer generation, it's Jo and Noé who are mourning lost values. Lionel may talk about stability, but outside of his homebase, he's a wanderer, tied to no one. For all his freedom, he is trapped.

Denis spent her early career working alongside Jim Jarmusch and Wim Wenders, and her films have a similar poetic laziness that draws more out of what is not said than what is. If character is action, then behavior is all that is needed to drive the plot. The way Gabrielle hangs around, nervously knocking at the door even after she has said her good-bye, or the way Lionel stares at another women across the room--these are profound moments, and in the case of the quiet man who forms the film's axis, silence is his greatest tool. As an audience, we are as compelled to watch Alex Descas as the people onscreen are compelled to watch Lionel. Some actors can draw the camera's attention just by their mere presence. Descas owns whatever space he inhabits. He doesn't have to claim it, it's just his. Yet, his most poignant moments come when he is vulnerable, playing the father realizing he could lose his daughter to another man.

Naturally, the actor is aided by the environment Claire Denis and cinematographer Agnès Godard (Golden Door) create for them. The action is staged in real locations, and the pair shoot from within the space provided. The look of 35 Shots of Rum is intimate and authentic, lending the same credibility to the performers and the story.

Keeping in line with the scale of the rest of the picture, the change that Denis and regular co-writer Jean-Pol Fargeau map out for Lionel is not a major one. Rather, it's learned and it's subtle. One of his colleagues, René (Julieth Mars Toussaint), retires early in the tale, presumably set free to enjoy life without the endless repetition of the subway routes. He doesn't go anywhere, though, he just hangs around, unsure of what to do with himself. The patterns he has established are all he knows, and he can't make a real change. His lack of purpose serves as a warning for Lionel: if you stay on the same track your entire life, you may never get to switch over to another. These are working-class versions of Ozu's salarymen: if you give your life to the job, what left do you have for yourself? The bigger life change is made by Jo, who assures her father that even though there might be other men in her life, they still will be father and daughter forever. She embraces the absolute even as she gets away from it. (Likewise, she reconnects with the past to wriggle out of its grasp.) To do otherwise is to become like Gabrielle, hung up on something she can never have.

The thirty-five shots of rum of the title is in reference to Lionel's special ritual, something he holds close and only indulges on the most special of occasions. When you consider the effects of alcohol, this too could be seen as an attempt to obliterate memories while also providing a balm that soothes one through a possibly unwanted transition. It's reckless, but so is life. We only see Lionel partake of this once, and he avoids explaining it until then, and so it's special when it happens. In a way, delving back into this drinking game suggests that maybe this is a case that the more things change, the more Lionel stays the same, and while a celebration is underway, he almost looks like he is at a wake rather than a party; at the same time, there is hope in his carriage. Acceptance. A cleansing. His head might be fuzzy in the morning--indeed, we've seen Lionel's hangovers--but once the cobwebs are clear, it's a whole new day.

TRUE STORIES - #951

Somewhere on the road between the early ’80s debut of MTV and the post sex, lies, and videotape Sundance revolution of early ’90s cinema, there is a pit stop: David Byrne’s  True Stories. More than just a vehicle for the Talking Heads’ next album--though there are some clips that were repurposed into genuine music videos--but not as fully realized a narrative as other artists’ self-mythologizing star turns (Prince’s Purple Rain or A Hard Day’s Night [review] and Spice World), True Stories is a genuine oddity. All these years later, revived by the Criterion Collection, released to a new audience, it comes off as a curio from another time, strangely innocent and yet indicative of the decade’s sometimes arch and ironic approach to commercial art.

The story goes that David Byrne was inspired by tabloid headlines, and he wanted to both explore the Americana that often fueled these bizarre tales but also celebrate the Americans that devoured them. True Stories is set in the fictional hamlet of Virgil, deep in the heart of Texas, and with Byrne serving as an observant on-camera narrator, the movie tracks the town’s populace over several days leading up to a celebratory parade and talent show. “Altman-esque” could easily be applied to True Stories; with its large criss-crossing cast and focus on at least one character’s attempt to write a song, it could be viewed as a kind of mini Nashville. I’d wager Byrne took more from his buddies Jonathan Demme and Jim Jarmusch, however; True Stories has the same quirkiness the latter would apply to his movies Mystery Train [review] and Coffee & Cigarettes.

Sadly, I fear I am spending more time talking about what the movie is like because that is really more interesting than what it is. There isn’t a lot to hang your hat on here, even with all the intersecting stories and the collection of wonderful character actors. Spalding Gray shows up as a tech baron who is disconnected from his family and neighbors; Swoosie Kurtz is a rich woman who never leaves her bed; and Jo Harvey Allen (The Homesman) regularly gets some chuckles as the living embodiment of a tabloid, a compulsive liar who connects herself to Elvis Presley, JFK, and just about anything else she can think of. (One of Byrne’s co-writers, Stephen Toblowsky, is also a well-known character actor, having appeared in Spaceballs, Groundhog Day, and countless others.) True Stories checks in on factory workers, bar patrons, and even the children of Virgil, and while one might be worried that an arty New Yorker like Byrne would not be able to resist making fun of Middle America, nothing could be further from the truth. His vision of Texas can certainly be unique to him--the music, the fashion, etc.--but he appears to have genuine affection for the small-town values that keep this community a community. He even dresses in western wear to (awkwardly) fit in.

That said, it’s clear that Byrne wants to make fun of something, but the satire is so scattered, it’s hard to tell what that is. Targets include advertising, religion, dating, popular music--all things that didn’t require the Texas setting to get skewered. Or is it that the individual dreams of the Virgil citizenry will carry on despite the invasion of outside ideas? Given that the climactic song is all about how love is more important than material goods or even freedom, such a theory would not be a stretch. It’s even called “People Like Us,” an inclusive statement, and sung in the movie by John Goodman, the saving grace of True Stories.

Only a few years into his career at the age of 34, True Stories was a pretty substantial role for Goodman. The Big Easy and Raising Arizona would soon follow, and John Goodman would become the John Goodman we all know and love, but the part of Louis Fyne shows the performer as an almost naïve neophyte. Louis works at the microchip manufacturer just like everyone else, and at night he turns his attention to finding love. Goodman plays him as both self-assured and meek, one trait masking the other, and there is a sweetness to the performance that makes it impossible to not want Louis to find what he’s looking for (or maybe for the actor to appear in a revival of Marty). Though more fresh-faced than he’d even appear in his first collaboration with the Coens, all the classic Goodman traits are there: the smile that is both endearing and tricksterish, the expert comedic timing and physical precision, the natural line delivery. His presence on the screen is so amiable, it imbues the rest of True Stories with a similar likeability, meaning that even if David Byrne’s threads never weave into a single tapestry, it’s hard not to still feel good about having spent your time taking a tour through his made-up utopia of would-be normalcy.

SMITHEREENS - #941

While 1970s American movies like Taxi Driver and Dog Day Afternoon gave us an indelible image of the grimy side of 1970s New York, it was the independent auteurs that followed that captured the more arty, anything-goes side of the city’s culture. Early Jarmusch, for instance, and even Martin Scorsese’s Big Apple follow-ups to Travis Bickle like The King of Comedy and After Hours.

Susan Seidelman is by far more in the Jarmusch camp. The New York of her 1982 feature debut Smithereens is the New York that gave us Basquiat and Madonna--with whom, of course, Seidelman would make Desperately Seeking Susan not too long after. Interesting people doing interesting things just for the sake of it, just because they thought New York was the place to be. New wave music and graffiti, striped skirts and checkered sunglasses, hustlers and poseurs--all of these are elements of Smithereens, and all make the film interesting, even if its story never quite finds the depth of its surroundings.

First-time film actress Susan Berman stars in Smithereens as Wren, a New Jersey ex-pat who is trying to blag her way into a rock-and-roll lifestyle. It’s never quite clear what Wren’s artistry encompasses, and likely she hasn’t figured it out yet either, but she plasters photocopies of her face around the city and pretty much barrels through anyone who gets in front of her. Forever the opportunist, she drags along fresh Montana-transplant Paul (Brad Rinn) to her night on the town when it’s clear he’ll pay the bills, but then drops him for Eric, a singer played by real life punk icon Richard Hell, as soon as he shows a passing interest and potentially something to gain. Wren spends the rest of Smithereens bouncing between the two, with only Paul being smart enough to know he’s being used, and the girl too blind to see that Eric will never take her to Los Angeles and let her manage his band.

Working with mostly an unprofessional cast*, Seidelman manages a kind of neorealism that is as much John Cassavetes as it is Jim Jarmusch--though I’d also compare this to Alison Anderson’s Border Radio [review]. This quality will  be a boon for viewers looking for an unvarnished time capsule, but might be a problem if you are seeking something with a bit more form. Seidelman is definitely working with the best of what she had available. Shot by Chirine El Khaden, who also worked a camera on the influential hip-hop movie Wild Style, Smithereens has the dirt and grime of a documentary--all of which comes through with a gritty clarity on the Criterion Blu-ray. We see such mythologized sights as the Peppermint Club, and most of the people hanging around are likely the real deal and not hired extras. Going from seedy movie theatres to Bohemian cafes, there is an undeniable authenticity to Smithereens. You could almost say you were there.

And you could also say you’ve spent a lifetime with its main character. Wren is a hard woman to like. Paul is entirely right: she is a self-serving loser with a bigger mouth than tangible qualities to offer. The only thing that makes her tolerable--as opposed to, say, Agnes Varda’s Vagabond protagonist, or countless loudmouth male sidekick characters like most anything Jason Lee played in the 1990s--is that Susan Berman understands the insecurity behind the bravado, and she can sell it when the façade drops. If only she was a tad more charismatic, I might have felt more inspired by the freeze-frame ending. Wren could have been more like Antoine Doinel on the beach at the end of The 400 Blows [review], suggesting a possible future; instead, she only appears startled by the irony of receiving unwanted attention after spending the whole movie trying to monopolize everyone’s time.

Much better is Seidelman’s initial film-school short And You Act Like One Too. Shot in 1976, this black-and-white tale of a housewife feeling neglected on her 30th birthday is a charming day-in-the-life. Marsha (Karen Butler) is abandoned by her husband and daughter on what is meant to be her special day, so instead of sitting around feeling sorry for herself, Marsha goes out and gets a new hairdo, runs some errands, and takes a chance giving a ride to a charming hitchhiker (Andras Maros). Unsurprisingly, this trip leads her to some unexpected places, and Seidelman delivers a comic twist at the end that is truly delightful. The film is simple in its intent, but broad in its character analysis.

Seidelman’s second student film is the color divorce drama Yours Truly, Andrea G. Stern. This short focuses its attention on young Andrea (Jilian Frank), the daughter of a newly separated couple. She lives with her mom (Joanne Gross), and starts to feel left out when a new man (Billy Wine) moves into the house. While the narrative thrust is that Andrea is trying to get Jonathan to move out, this isn’t a Disney Channel comedy where the schemes are wild and implausible; on the contrary, Seidelman’s deeply felt script imagines what realistic actions Andrea would take, what tools she’d have at her disposal.

Yours Truly, Andrea G. Stern is somewhat ambitious in style, framing itself as a documentary with the off-screen director colluding with the girl, but also putting us in the space of her imagination. The title refers to how Andrea signs off her diary entries, which also serve as narration for the film. The result is something more real and personal than if Seidelman had chosen not to take a child’s point of view so serious.

* Though keep an eye out, because apparently Chris Noth from Law & Order and Sex and the City plays a prostitute! I didn’t see him, but I didn’t know to look.

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

THE COLOR WHEEL - FILMSTRUCK/CRITERION CHANNEL

This short review was originally written for The Oregonian in 2014.

Taking their cue from Affleck and Damon, actors Alex Ross Perry and Carlen Altman wrote 2011's The Color Wheel as a starring vehicle for themselves.

Alas, Matt and Ben they are not. Perry plays Colin, an uptight writer, and Altman is his sister, JR, a flighty actress. The pair undertakes a road trip to retrieve her stuff from her ex's place.

The siblings bicker and whine the whole way, only to bond at a horrible party with former friends. It helps to have people worse than you around, apparently.

Shot in black-and-white and lacking polished performances, "The Color Wheel" hearkens back to indie faves like Jim Jarmusch's Stranger Than Paradise [review] and Kevin Smith's Clerks.

Unlike those films, The Color Wheel turns up more annoyance than laughter.

LA VIE DE BOHEME - #693

There is a mutual appreciation society between New York indie icon Jim Jarmusch and quirky Finnish filmmaker Aki Kaurismäki, and that spiritual and creative connection has never been more evident in any of the Kaurismäki films I have seen than it is in his 1992 effort La vie de bohème (The Bohemian Life). Like the early works of his Aki's New York compatriot, it's a lazy comedy drawn in warm tones, inhabited by genial losers, and depicting a pocket of society just around the corner from the norm. Based on work by writer Henri Murger that also served as the inspiration for La Bohème (and thus all the iterations that followed), La vie de bohème also owes a little something to the tradition of similarly minded efforts featuring ex-pat artists and writers and the bungled romances that plague them, such as Ernst Lubitsch's A Design for Living [review] or even Stanley Donen and Gene Kelly's An American in Paris [review].

La vie de bohème is quintessentially Kaurismäki, however, and unmistakably European. The trio at the heart of the film are Marcel (André Wilms), a struggling playwright; Schaunard (Kari Väänänen), a loutish musician; and Rodolfo (Matti Pellonpää), a refugee from the Soviet bloc making his way in Paris as a painter. Marcel is being evicted from his apartment, and Schaunard is moving into it, and after a night of drinking where the writer shares a glass or two (or five) with Rodolfo, the three become fast friends. Kaurismäki's script details their various schemes to stay afloat, including Marcel's taking over a burgeoning fashion magazine (his publisher is played by Samuel Fuller, a mentor to Jarmsuch, as well) and Rodolfo bilking a naïve art collector (Jean-Pierre Léaud, who is a dynamo in both of his scenes). In the midst of this, Rodolfo has a romance with another immigrant, Mimi (Evelyne Didi), gets deported, and then comes back. He is, arguably, the driving force of the narrative. If nothing else, he serves as some kind of conscience, the guy that, were he to do better, could change everyone's fates. In particular, he holds to some stringent ideals that adversely affect Mimi. His old-fashioned views on the relationship between men and women are as impractical as his chosen lifestyle. It's up to Mimi, as well as Marcel's girlfriend/secretary Musette (Christine Murillo), to provide the voice of reason, worrying about such pesky things as food, rent, and delivering on promises.

Kaurismäki has a good time with the classic story, infusing it with his own kooky sense of humor while also having fun with the conventions of nineteenth-century dramatic novels. Naming Rodfolfo's dog after Baudelaire will give you some indication of the reverence (or lack thereof) the auteur holds for classic authors. La vie de bohème goes from silly to melodramatic parody before finally settling into a fairly dark finale. The artists of the piece have spent the movie trying to dodge all responsibility, including the results of their own actions (or inaction). Inevitably, this is an unsustainable practice, and Rodolfo is forced to face his own selfishness when his bad habits lead to him being very much alone.

The cast of La vie de bohème is populated with Kaurismäki regulars, all of whom click well together and have little problem balancing the absurdity of most of the script with its all-important moments of realness. Pellonpää plays a similar straight-man role to his one as the manager in the Leningrad Cowboys movies [review], while Wilms' trademark earnestness, seen most recently in Kaurismäki's Le Havre, makes him a rather delightful con man. His scene where he escapes from a thug by distracting a cop with a quickly improvised story is something straight out of a 1930s comedy. One gets the sense that Marcel's writing is likewise a feint, or at the very least relatable only to himself. We are spared hearing any of his prose. When it comes to the boys' art, Kaurismäki reserves his savage humor for Schaunard, who plays a song that is a weird hybrid of John Cage and German noise and industrial. It unsurprisingly sends both Mimi and Musette running out of the room.

Fans of early 1990s indie cinema will appreciate La vie de bohème's casual pacing. The movie is in no real hurry and is as content as its characters with letting the rest of the world move on as it stays settled. Timo Salminen, who is Kaurismäki's go-to director of photography, shoots the movie in black-and-white, and will inevitably draw comparisons to similar work by Tom DiCillo (Stranger than Paradise [review]) and Robby Müller (Down by Law). There is a clean look to everything, however, that separates it from its grainier cousins. For all the squalor the layabout artists indulge in, there is a shabby beauty to how their lives look on film that is reflective of the everyday experience they attempt to capture in their own work. When they bother to do it, that is.

For a complete rundown on the special features, read the full review at DVD Talk. 

PRIVATE LIVES OF ALEXANDER KORDA: THE PRIVATE LIFE OF DON JUAN - ECLIPSE SERIES 16

"What is romantic about spending your life telling women they are everything they are not?"

The jocular tone of Alexander Korda's 1934 film The Private Life of Don Juan is evident from the get-go, as is its sexual undercurrents. Or should I say overcurrents? The movie opens on a fountain spraying high into the air as a minstrel sings the ballad of the titular lover, the unseen Don Juan, desired by wives, hated by husbands. Women all across Seville are forlorn because their love lives have dwindled since the famous ladies man departed, only to have their spirits lifted as a mysterious figure, appearing to us only as a shadow, arrives beneath their despondent balconies to toss them a flower. Could it be that Don Juan has returned to woo them anew? Passion erupts, just like that fountain, rising up and going...well, nowhere.

The Private Life of Don Juan isn't so much a romantic comedy as it is a comedy of romance. Korda and writers Frederick Lonsdale and Lajos Biro (a regular on Korda movies, but who also wrote von Sternberg's The Last Command [review]), working from a play by Henri Bataille, aren't interested in the legend of Don Juan, except to skewer and deflate it. Screen legend Douglas Fairbanks, here in a rare talkie and also starring in his final feature, leads the film as the heroic lover. He has snuck back home under a veil of secrecy, hoping to avoid being jailed for debts that his angry wife, Doña Dolores (Benita Hume), has purchased in order to lord them over his head. Don Juan has seen better days. He is older and tired, maybe a little like the aging actor who plays him, not as ready to perform as in the old days, and also finding that he is being replaced. The man handing out flowers wasn't Don Juan, though now the whole town thinks it was. It's a new casanova looking to follow in the Don's footsteps.

Opportunity strikes when Don Juan leaves his wife waiting yet again, choosing instead to woo the pretty dancer Antonita (Merle Oberon). While he makes love to her, his doppelganger is straining his back to climb a balcony in another part of town. When the fake Don Juan is run through with an angry husband's sword, the real deal sees a way to sneak off, avoiding handcuffs by playing dead until he can save up enough to buy his way out of jail. Only, once Don Juan has gone, a new industry springs up around his memory. A scandalous, exaggerated biography becomes a best seller, and an opportunistic playwright crafts a stage production celebrating his alleged exploits. Fearing his legacy has gotten beyond his control, Don Juan returns to Seville to announce he is alive.

And here is where the true sting comes. No one will believe this middle-aged man is the real Don Juan. Antonita remembers him as younger, with a different mouth and blue eyes. The theatre audience laughs at the legendary lothario when he interrupts the play. There is no way for the man to live up to the mythology that exists around him. The truth is not important. When the play's author asks the audience which they'd prefer, a Don Juan who is just a man or the one who is a heroic phantom, they choose the phantom.

It's a fairly prescient depiction of the downfalls of fame. Old Hollywood and its stars had a particular knack for creating actors to fit a predetermined image. Douglas Fairbanks Sr. was known for his stunt work and his suave persona, and he must have more than once been in a situation where the truth couldn't live up to the publicity. One has to respect his lack of ego for poking fun at himself here. He's still very charming on screen, smiling and laughing, even as the Don Juan act falters. In the film's final scene, his usual lines are turned down, the woman he says them to has already heard them. Don Juan has no defense. That gambit is all he has. It's a revelation both mirthful and mournful. The old soul is accepting his new position. The myth is learning to be fine with being just a man.

Jim Jarmusch fans will likely recognize the funeral scene in The Private Life of Don Juan from Broken Flowers, the indie director's own film about the twilight of a ladies man. It's the movie that Bill Murray's character, also named Don, is watching early in the film, as he realizes how alone he really is. Jarmusch has picked this section for a reason. Korda's scene has a lot of emotional subtext. Here is the man, believed dead, standing amongst a legion of black-clad women who have come to mourn his passing--and he knows not a one of them. These aren't his actual lovers, these are women who believed in the fantasy, who are crying over something they never had. In reality, for all his conquests, Don Juan is alone. Sure, he is amused to be cut loose, but then frustrated that he can't reclaim his identity. Don Juan has to shed everything to learn what's truly important. He has to understand his biggest fib is not his practiced rap, but everything he pretended to be. People believe the lies because there was no other truth.

The Private Life of Don Juan has a heavy meaning, but it's not a heavy movie. Far from it. It's the lightest of the Alexander Korda pictures in the Eclipse set. The episodic script moves quickly from one scenario to the next, a series of quick comic bursts, some of them schticky, some of them sensual, sometimes both. The culmination is probably when the exiled Don tries to show a barmaid (Binnie Barnes) that he can be everything his biography claims him to be, but it takes a couple of tries to deliver the "hot lava." Korda is having fun peeling back the curtains to peek into the bedroom, to show the construct behind the myth. Just as Flora Robson stole The Rise of Catherine the Great [review] in her showy supporting role as the Empress, The Private Life of Don Juan is taken over by Melville Cooper, playing Leporello, the long-suffering organizer of Don Juan's life. He's the one who makes sure Don Juan eats the right food to stay in shape, and who organizes his social engagements. Cooper is like the 1930s equivalent of F. Murray Abraham, blustery and forceful and very funny. The biggest laugh comes midway through the film when he cuts one of Don's hostesses to the quick, saying his favorite meal is a gabby old woman's tongue. And not while it's still in her mouth.

What really makes The Private Life of Don Juan work, though, is that Korda doesn't sacrifice that glib tone in order to make his point. Don Juan settles down and expresses his lesson learned, but he delivers his epiphany with the same blithe manner as he has said everything leading up to it. It's a new seduction, you see, one that is about allowing himself to be seduced as much as he is doing the seducing. He's falling in love with life in a whole new way.

AKI KAURISMAKI'S LENINGRAD COWBOYS - ECLIPSE SERIES 29

The 1990s were a weird time for independent film. For as lacking in character as much of popular culture was during the early part of the decade (you can keep the music; no, seriously, keep it), film got really quirky and odd. Much of this was attributed to Steven Soderbergh and Sex, Lies, and Videotape and the impact of the Sundance Film Festival. Soderbergh's debut effort came out in 1989, the same year Finnish filmmaker Aki Kaurismäki released Leningrad Cowboys Go America (79 minutes), a bizarre hybrid of mockumentary and road trip pictures that was right in line with the cinema to come.

Though, to be fair, Kaurismäki was more part of the previous generation of maverick filmmakers, including his influential admirer, Jim Jarmusch, who also appears in Leningrad Cowboys Go America, the first movie in Eclipse's Aki Kaurismäki's Leningrad Cowboys boxed set. The silver-haired New York director plays an auto mechanic who sells the European rock band the car that they will drive across most of America on their way to Mexico. Given the back and forth between the two movie men, it's a fitting metaphor. They trade their tools and share in the act of creation.

Leningrad Cowboys Go America is sort of like a mix of This is Spinal Tap and A Hard Day's Night. The line between the fiction and the reality that informs it is blurred. This could be a fake band pretending to go on the road, or it could be a real band pretending to go on the road. The operative word is "pretending." Kaurismäki took a Finnish group called the Sleepy Sleepers and turned them into a Russian band lacking in musical identity but overflowing with image. They are like a parody of the Soviet embrace of American pop following glasnost. Their extended pompadours and pointy shoes make them look like characters out of a Grimm fairy tale, some kind of Rumpelstiltskin in pimp clothes. Their music begins as traditional European folk, complete with accordion and brass, but morphs into rockabilly and punk as they travel the U.S. It's not hard to imagine a young Eugene Hutz seeing this movie and getting the inspiration for Gogol Bordello.

The music is fairly entertaining, with echoes of the performance art element of New Wave bands like Devo and Talking Heads. Some of the performances in the movie can be a little clumsy. The lip-synching can be pretty poor. Still, there is something amusing about the Monkees-esque comedy of the guys breaking out into songs they've never rehearsed just to fit in at their latest pick-up bar gig.

The rest of Leningrad Cowboys Go America is not nearly so amusing. Kaurismäki pushes the fish-out-of-water humor as far as it will go. The story essentially revolves around the band's manager Vladimir (Matti Pellonpää) keeping the guys moving and working, from the Big Apple down to Mexico where they are going to play a wedding for the relative of a scumbag promoter. Vladimir hoards the cash, spending it on beer and cracking the whip on the others. They are also hauling one of their fallen comrades, a guitarist who froze to death back home, on the roof of their car to show him the world before he is buried. And they also run into a long-lost cousin (Nicky Tesco), who works in a gas station.

While some of the antiquated plotting works, I have to admit that much of Leningrad Cowboys Go America seemed overly tame and contrived. The humor is silly and often lazy, and very much a product of its time. Remember, how I said it was weird back then? Leningrad Cowboys Go America is a movie where everyone seems to know they are being weird, and it kind of falls flat as a result. I know it was quite popular when it came out, but you know, tastes change. I'm also not saying Leningrad Cowboys Go America was bad, more that it was just inoffensive to the point of being ineffectual. It's like a cute MTV promo that a band would have made back then, relying on the group's image more than quality storytelling, like a Herman's Hermits or Elvis Presley movie. Only this time the band has no prior recognition or hit songs to float them by.

Though, to be fair, the Leningrad Cowboys would eventually take on a life of their own. Perhaps a more apt reference point is 1991's The Commitments, Alan Parker's hit movie about the Irish soul band that began as an acting ensemble initially put together for the picture that then jumped out of the film and became a real group for a while. The Leningrad Cowboys continued to play and tour after the first movie and before returning in a sequel. The second film, Leningrad Cowboys Meet Moses (1994; 94 mins.), follows the same basic premise of the first film, only now the journey is reversed. After several years as a successful band in Mexico, the Cowboys, now decked out in day-glo bandito gear, have drank away their fortunes on tequila. An offer to reform takes them to New York, where they discover the interested promoter is actually Vladimir. He has grown a beard, gotten a sliver of religion, and started calling himself Moses. He wants to make amends by leading his people back to Siberia. So begins a transcontinental road trip, once more full of ups and downs, peaking when the guys again realize Vladimir is cheating them.

Leningrad Cowboys Meet Moses is a kind of a mess. For whatever peculiarities marred Leningrad Cowboys Go America, at least they had a modicum of authenticity. By comparison, Leningrad Cowboys Meet Moses' humor is forced and lacking any grounding. Kaurismäki tries to turn this journey into a religious quest, complete with familiar iconography (a burning bush, a golden calf, etc.) and political opposition (a man named Lenin trades Marxist slogans with Vladimir's bible verses). There is also an absurd plot about Vladimir stealing the nose off the Statue of Liberty.

One thing I will give the second movie is that the music is more varied and thus comes off better. The performances are more polished and the material selected represents a more striking range, befitting the European setting. The best number is a tune reminiscent of '60s French rock, sung by Elijah (Andre Wilms), an agent pursuing the stolen nose. Perhaps it's fitting then that the final film in the trilogy, the hour-long Total Balalaika Show (1994), is purely a concert documentary. Shot in Helsinki in 1993, Kaurismäki captures the massive gathering of the Leningrad Cowboys with the 150-member Alexandrov Red Army Chorus and Dance Ensemble. Backed by this orchestra and choir, and standing in front of a huge audience filling the Senate Square, the Cowboys appear as tiny figures running through covers of familiar American hits and traditional Russian folk songs. They size of the concert nearly swallows them, but credit where it's due, they carry on admirably.

Kaurismäki shoots Total Balalaika Show with few frills. It seems about all he can do to just contain the stage in frame. He matches the aesthetics of the fictional films by using title cards to announce each song. The finished documentary suggests Total Balalaika Show was probably a concert that was more fun to attend than to watch on video. Given the size of the show, the musicians play to the cheap seats. The big gestures flatten out when boxed in this way. The songs themselves also lack much passion. This is kitschy theatre more than anything. The Cowboys don't exhibit much visible connection to songs like "Sweet Home Alabama." Only the more universal themes of something like Dylan's "Knocking on Heaven's Door" survive their mechanical accents and predictable musical arrangements--and even that is due in large part to the brass and the men's choir adding their grand tones. I closed my eyes and listened, and couldn't imagine anyone choosing to play a record of these songs all on their own. (Same goes for the five music videos, including one lazy rendition of the Doors track "L.A. Woman," that round out the third disc.)

It's hard for me to say if I got in a time machine and went back to see Aki Kaurismäki's Lenigrad Cowboys movies when they were first released if I would feel differently about them now. They are films very much of their time, utilizing a brand of twee anarchy that seemed fresh at the turn of the 1990s but that comes off as oh so quaint and stale now. Such self-involved humor can be a little tedious, and likely wouldn't survive without the music to break things up. Aki Kaurismäki's Lenigrad Cowboys is a well-intentioned, but essentially misguided lark.

For a complete rundown on the special features, read the full review at DVD Talk.