OTHELLO - #870

Anton Corbijn made a music video for Joy Division’s “Atmosphere” back in 1988 that, whether he intended it or not, is reminsicent of the opening scenes from Orson Welles’ masterful 1950s adaptation of Shakespeare’s Othello. Which is an odd way to enter into an old, whispery black-and-white film, thoughts of one of Ian Curtis’ most doomy and gloomy songs hanging out in the back of my brain, but such it is. Welles was goth before goth. The sequence is a flash-forward to a funeral, all pomp and dark circumstance. The slanted angles are ominous, and they let you know this is not right, this should not be happening. The quick zoom on Iago in his cage is urgent, furious, frustrated--you know immediately that he’s the villain. He did this. It’s a crazy smart way to set up a story that the filmmaker can presume everyone knows. Because now you’re intrigued. You want to know who is dead and how that evil dude got stuck in that jail.

This Othello may be the least stagey film adaptation of Shakespeare ever made. Infamous in Welles lore for being shot over three years, with Welles pausing production to rush off and take bit parts in other movies to raise cash, and then returning to Italy to resume his work. Just look at those scenes once the story proper begins. The camera moves up and over the different levels of Venice, from the canals to the windows on the upper floors, then down spiral stairs chasing an angry mob carrying torches. It’s all inertia, all movement, and at the same time, there are indications of class represented via each player’s position in the construct. Later, there are spectacular fights and chases below ground. The violence in this movie is invigorated with the chaos of its production. So much so, in fact, that sometimes, ingeniously, the dizzying pursuits hide how the disparate pieces, shot months and even years apart, are stitched together. Welles never loses the plot--neither figuratively nor literally.

The balance of setting and the use of exterior vs. interior is also a reflection of the physical and the internal. Like in Roman Polanski’s Macbeth [review], the players are tiny in comparison to the architecture (though, I guess it should be that Polanski is like Welles). And to be fair, it’s petty concerns that set the tragedy of Othello in motion. For those who don’t know the story, Othello--played by Welles himself--is a general in the Venetian army. He is also a Moor--a term for Muslims living in the area in the middle ages--a fact that sets him apart from his comrades. When Othello elopes with Desdemona (Suzanne Cloutier), a politician’s daughter, eyebrows are raised. Othello’s lieutenant, the silver-tongued Iago (Micheál MacLiammóir), sees the opportunity for advancement and takes advantage of Othello’s position as an outsider, convincing him that Desdemona is cheating on him and setting everyone on a path of destruction.

Up until Welles made this film, the tradition was for white actors in the Othello role to wear blackface, a tradition Welles upholds--albeit not to the exaggerated fashion we tend to think of when we hear the term. The irony here is that despite such a regressive decision, Welles embraces the progressive subtext in the play. There is a fascinating racial commentary at work, particularly in how Othello and Desdemona defend their marriage to her father. And already, there is a suggestion that a black man must be even better than his white counterparts.

When we consider the dynamic between Othello and Desdemona, and the violent outcome of his suspicion, Shakespeare was ahead of his time in giving us a perfect portrait of toxic masculinity. Othello’s jealousy is fueled by pride. In his performance, Welles is deceptively two-note: repression of rage and rage. Yet, there is more to his control here; again, he is the black man who has to be better, who has to always show composure, even when the façade means he can’t have a reasonable discussion and ferret out the truth. As his foil, Iago is so matter-of-fact, eschewing the obvious mustache twirling and greasy machinations, pulling off his tricks by merely being present. There is a Zen koan about how water is the most powerful force in the known world because of how it gradually erodes rock; this is MacLiammóir’s Iago. His is not as sinister a performance as tends to be the norm with this, one of Shakespeare’s oiliest villains. MacLiammóir is more considered, passive-aggressive, almost as if he doesn’t care. There’s a hint of a sociopath in the portrayal, so little moves him.

While I am dazzled by the filmmaking overall, one downside of knowing Welles history and struggle is I am often too aware of his technique. My eyes drift from an actor to the artfully placed shadow on the wall, for instance, or to clock the depth of field, how close one element is and how far the other, seeing how expertly the shot was constructed. And, of course, there’s how many times you note that the dubbed voice of some bit player is Welles himself, making up for perceived bad performances or just poor sound due to shooting on the fly.  I suppose this isn’t really that tough a problem to have. There’s so much virtuosity in Welles’ mis-en-scene, one should never become immune to it. Just look at the construction and the edits when Othello returns home after first being incepted by Iago. The quick cuts and askew angles pull the whole thing together with such emotional kineticism, it’s like watching Eddie Van Halen play classical music on his guitar; you can’t help but notice that human hands should not be able to create art in that way.

In that scene, and throughout the film, Welles’ montage is about scale vs. intimacy. When Othello and Desdemona go to their marriage bed, they are rendered as just shadows on the wall, but their shadows are huge. We are at once with them and outside, but the marriage consummation casts a pall over everything else. Interestingly Iago is more intimate with Othello than even his wife. The framing gets tighter the deeper we get into his machinations. When Othello and Iago make their sinister pact, the close-ups are so tight, their conversation can’t even share a frame, they are too large within their individual screens. Then the next deal is made in a sauna, arguably a place where all are vulnerable, and where trust is meant to be at the utmost. I mean, where else do you go and get naked and perfectly relaxed around total strangers? (Answers neither requested nor required.)

It’s of no small significance that it’s in the sauna where Iago actually resorts to murder himself. Welles lights his eyes almost as if to give him a supervillain mask...or to suggest he’s enlightened? I mean, Iago has a curly white dog years ahead of James Bond villains popularizing cats, and decades ahead of Paris Hilton and other modern social scoundrels carrying around their pooches in purses. It also feels like 1950s shorthand for homosexuality, which could suggest much about Iago’s true motivations were we to take that onboard. His own love of Othello is even more forbidden than Othello’s love for Desdemona.

The most intimate moment in Welles’ Othello, however, is also the most  harrowing: the murder of Desdemona. The sheet Othello wraps over her face inadvertently highlights her whiteness, an intentional emphasis on her innocence, but also a horrific reminder of how black men are portrayed in the media. The last kiss between them, passed through the death shroud, appears more to suck out her final breath than connect her with her homicidal husband. It’s legitimately uncomfortable to watch. Immediately after, Othello imprisons himself, locking the door to their chambers, speaking to the crowd through bars--Welles visually shows his guilt before the character is ready to admit it. Or to modern eyes, we can divine that he knows this is the fate society has always imagined for him...

...and if there’s one thing Shakespeare’s tragic figures can’t escape, it’s fate.

MACBETH (1971) - #726

“Blunt not the heart, enrage it!”

If any line from Shakespeare’s Scottish play resonated with Roman Polanski when making Macbeth, the first film he directed following the murder of his wife Sharon Tate at the hands of the Manson Family, it surely was this. Because if there is anything the director brings to the oft-told tale, it’s more passion, more violence, and definitely more blood. No dull emotions here, only fire.

It feels almost silly to review Shakespeare adaptations and haggle over the plot. The stories themselves are so well-known, we are better off looking at the choices the filmmakers settle on, the aesthetic they establish: the audacious modernism of Baz Luhrmann’s Romeo + Juliet [review], the remodeling of Richard III as a World War II cautionary tale by Sir Ian McKellen [review], or the outlandish whatever-it-is of Julie Taymor’s Titus [review] all spring to mind as films that dared to change the shape of the source material in ways we’d never seen. In my review of Orson Welles’ 1948 staging of Macbeth, I focused on his use of cheap sets from a cowboy picture to create a surreal horror film and a more impressionistic, pointed examination of the play.

By contrast, Polanski’s 1971 Macbeth is far more grounded. Realistic locations, sparsely decorated, provide the dirt and the grime of the actual times and marries them to 1970s filmmaking. Like Welles, Polanski also leans into the spookiness of the piece, complete with a supernatural dagger and a trippy hallucination that, once decoded, ultimately hoists Macbeth on his own hubris. These elaborate visual flourishes really stand out, given more impact by the director’s restraint most everywhere else. Likewise, the gore. When violence does erupt and blood flows, it can be shocking. Yet, being a student of horror, Polanski also knows when an off-screen atrocity can be more effective. This Macbeth’s most unsettling scene is the murder of Macduff’s family. Polanski isolates us with the mother and her favorite son while they listen to the terrified screams of those being slaughtered throughout the castle.

Jon Finch, whom that same year would feature in Sunday Bloody Sunday and Hitchcock’s Frenzy, plays Macbeth. He at first appears younger than expected, his long hair and chiseled features making him appear more like a Shakespearean pin-up than a grizzled warrior. He is a brooding, romantic figure at this stage, showing flashes of ambition, but mostly indecisive. The change that comes after his murdering King Duncan (Nicolas Selby) is most pronounced. Polanski chooses to show the actual regicide here, so we can see that when Macbeth does finally make up his mind, it’s in the spur of the moment. His transformative action is not a decisive one. Even so, when we do see him wearing the crown, he is a changed man. His clothes are brighter, his grooming more considered, and even his posture is improved. It’s like a 1960s heartthrob reverting to a classic Hollywood leading man. Finch gives the elevated Macbeth more swagger, more confidence. He does, after all, believe himself to be charmed, the words of the three witches who prophesized these events giving him the false hope that all tragedies thrive on.

The aftermath of Duncan’s murder is another great moment of Polanski’s. He uses the emptiness of the castle and the quiet of night to amplify the paranoia of the Macbeths. With everyone else asleep, every stray noise, every cry of a distant owl, resonates with an undeniable volume. As Lady Macbeth, Francesca Annis (who was also Lady Jessica in David Lynch’s Dune) matches Finch’s own uncertainty to start with a single-minded drive, only to switch with him later on when she descends into madness. The framing regularly places them in the foreground, but centered and low, so that the massive stone castle that surrounds them just goes to show us how tiny this royal pair really is.

Roman Polanski’s Macbeth is real achievement. It manages to present Shakespeare’s drama as contemporary and vital without sacrificing any of the source. It’s as faithful as you’re likely to get, and yet very much it’s own thing, which is why it still remains as engrossing and disturbing even now.

TESS - #697

This capsule review originally appeared in the Oregonian last March when the restored version of the film came to Portland. 

Despite receiving plenty of accolades on its release in 1979, Tess never gained a reputation equal to Roman Polanski's more popular thrillers. One could blame the three-hour running time or the unrelentingly downbeat adaptation of the Thomas Hardy novel Tess of the D'Urbervilles.

Given the director's personal history, it also doesn't help that the story of one peasant girl's misfortune in 19th-century England can be seen as sympathizing with the same girl's rapist. Still, Tess offers some beautiful filmmaking and a restrained, yet emotionally powerful, performance from Nastassja Kinski. This new touring print boasts a full digital restoration, which means the Oscar-winning costumes and sets should dazzle more than ever before.

SIDELINE: MORE REVIEWS FOR 3/13

The non-Criterion movies I saw last month...

IN THEATRES...

* Spring Breakers, Harmony Korine's hotly debated, inconsistent subversion of Girls Gone Wild and thug life.

* Stoker, the weird, creepy, baffling English-language debut from Oldboy director Park Chan-wook.

* The We and the I, Michel Gondry's social experiment following a group of Bronx high schoolers on their bus ride home.

My Oregonian columns:

* March 7: featuring Tess, Roman Polanski's adaptation of Thomas Hardy; a climate change documentary called Greedy Lying Bastards; and an absolute waste-of-time horror anthology entitled The ABCs of Death.

* March 14: the documentaries A Place at the Table, about food distribution and poverty, and Turning, featuring a special performance piece by Antony & the Johnsons. Plus, Yossi, a sequel to the Israeli gay-themed love story Yossi & Jagger, picking up ten years after the events in the first film.

* March 21: horror-based documentary My Amityville Horror and war drama The Kill Hole. (Worst title of the year?)

* March 29: the poker documentary Drawing Dead, an indie "trapped in a car" thriller called Detour, and the Faux Film Festival.

ON BD/DVD...

* China Heavyweight, a documentary following three Chinese boxers on their way up and maybe on their way down.

* College: Ultimate Edition, the latest Buster Keaton reissue is predictably hilarious.

* Diana Vreeland: The Eye Has to Travel, a documentary about the legendary fashion editor, whose career spanned half a century.

* Diary of a Chambermaid, the Jean Renoir adaptation from 1946, almost twenty years before Luis Bunuel.

* For Ellen, the third film from So Yong Kim is as emotionally wrought as her others, but lacking certain connections. Starring Paul Dano.

* The Great Magician, a recent period piece set in 1930s China, with Tony Leung as an illusionist. The movie wants to be old-style entertainment, but it's not much fun.

* Killing Them Softly, Andrew Dominik's crime film was my second favorite movie of 2012, and it's even better the second time. Starring Brad Pitt.

* On Approval, a witty British comedy from 1944, directed by and starring Clive Brook.

* The Song of Bernadette, a dismal religious picture from the 1940s, starring Jennifer Jones as the girl who sees visions.

* Strangers in the Night, a middling early career melodrama from Anthony Mann.

* This is Not a Film, the lauded political documentary from Iran turns out to be much ado about nothing.

ROSEMARY'S BABY - #630

"This is no dream...this is really happening!"

I wonder how many documentary programs have used Mia Farrow's panicked cry to illustrate the dark side of swinging '60s psychedelia? I know I have seen it in more than a few. It's certainly an iconic moment, coming midway through a crucial sequence of Roman Polanski's 1968 chiller Rosemary's Baby. The sweet and trusting Rosemary Woodhouse has been drugged without her knowledge, and her sudden declaration occurs when the surreal fantasy the narcotics instigated intersects with the cruel reality she is suffering: a cult of Satanists have made her their unwilling concubine.

Classic horror movies always play on the anxieties of the times. Found footage shockers are popular right now because modern moviegoers are finding themselves increasingly under surveillance in our everyday lives. A film like Paranormal Activity taps into the very real issue of privacy rights and how, more often than not anymore, we surrender much of those rights ourselves. Who filmed the footage in that movie? One of the victims. Who turns out to be the murderer? Someone close to him. The killer isn't just in the house, but you're sharing the same modem.

And so it is that Polanski, working from a novel by Ira Levin, builds a scary story that spreads itself across the generation gap. The malevolent forces that prey on the Woodmans are older people, and they dig at Rosemary's anxieties about motherhood, about creating new life and being a parent to the next generation. The metaphor? That change is happening and we might not be ready to handle what's next. There may be a riot going on, but no one is sure they can really take charge when they get what they want.

Or, if you prefer, Rosemary's Baby is simply a story about a woman caught up in weird goings on, and how she slowly realizes that not all is right with her neighbors, their friends, or even her husband (an earnest and ever-brilliant John Cassavetes). The film intensifies on a slow burn, building the weirdness slowly, shifting from goofy to scary by degrees, and yet never losing its black sense of humor. In a lot of ways Rosemary's Baby is camp, but it's pure camp, as equal in its sincerity as a piece of genre fiction as it is full of cinematic pranksterism. (Ever notice that the villain's name, Roman Castevet, not only shares a first name with the writer/director, but the last name sounds suspiciously like that of its male lead?) There are lots of funny, killer details that almost look like kitsch all these decades later. Ruth Gordon's pink hair, or the paintings on the Castevet wall, which include a rendering of a famous fire and a parody of more traditional religious and patriotic paintings that features deformed devil worshipers attacking an innocent. Most of this is clearly intentional, and some of it has only gotten funnier with age. I mean, could they have known Charles Grodin would become Charles Grodin and how ludicrous that sad moustache of his would end up looking?

Which isn't me watching Rosemary's Baby from a hipster's perch, giggling at how old fashioned and tacky it is, because I wouldn't use either of those disdainful phrases. On the contrary, I have a lot of respect for how brilliantly Polanski skewers both the young and the old. The character of Guy Woodhouse is a would-be actor who pays lip service to art but is really just looking to get famous (apparently this is not a new societal malady). Next to him, the Satanists almost look harmless. They may be corny, but they believe in something. Guy will sell out anyone.

Amidst all of this kidding around, however, is a serious scary movie. Polanski uses humor to set his audience at ease, and then he strikes from the other direction. Tense journeys into dark hallways, ominous portents, and even the occasional gore--he never lets us forget that something isn't quite right in the top floor apartment. The dream sequences in Rosemary's Baby are some of the best ever in a film. Polanski establishes a wonky logic in Rosemary's nightmares, one that is as random as it is contrived, leading us from the boogie men of her subconscious to the honest-to-goodness boogie men all around her. Mia Farrow is kind of remarkable in the role. She manages to maintain a believable innocence, even when the armchair quarterbacks in the audience should otherwise be screaming, "Oh, come on, how can you not tell something is wrong?" Again, the most insidious writing goes to Cassavetes. The way the husband tweaks at his wife's insecurities to keep her from disrupting the plan is laced with a cold cruelty. If one wanted to read too much into it, there are maybe some unkind (and not necessarily true) parallels to be made between this performance and the driven man who gave it, not to mention the filmmaker who shaped it.

Rosemary's Baby has been on out-of-print on DVD in North America for some time now, and the new Criterion release has been manufactured in high-definition (there is also a Blu-Ray version). The new widescreen disc image looks extraordinary, maintaining the unreality even as it improves on the overall clarity and resolution. Detail looks incredible--you could spend a ton of time poring over the nooks and crannies in both the Woodman and Castevets' apartments, every prop appears carefully chosen--and yet the new print manages not to sacrifice the exaggerations. The colors in particular have an almost-over-the-top quality. Farrow's yellow sun dress and bright hair is meant to directly contrast with her sickly pallor as the movie progresses, just as the dinginess of the apartment the couple moves into is brightened up by their new decoration, only to become stifling again. Particularly compare the later apartment scenes to the outdoor shots when Rosemary tries to make a run for it. The sun never sets!

In terms of new extras, a featurette featuring current interviews with Roman Polanski, Mia Farrow, and producer Robert Evans is most welcome. Rosemary's Baby is a film with its own lore. Indeed, I first rented it after watching the documentary The Kid Stays in the Picture, which numbered Rosemary's Baby as one of the amazing string of hits Evans produced as the head of Paramount.

There is also Komeda, Komeda, an inviting documentary about music composer Krzystof Komeda, as well as an archival interview with author Ira Levin and some of the author's notes.

All in all, Rosemary's Baby is an impressive reissue just in time for Halloween. If you're looking for something creepy to watch before the holiday, then throw this on your biggest screen, turn out the lights, and crank it up. Once you're good and scared, just keep reminding yourself, this isn't happening...it's just a dream. 

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

CUL-DE-SAC (Blu-Ray) - #577

Roman Polanski's 1966 film Cul-de-sac is a darkly comic genre send-up, playfully toying with B-movie conventions while subverting them with Polanski's impish humor. It's like a Peckinpah's Straw Dogs [review] crossed with the old Bogart picture The Desperate Hours, but with Polanski's typically perverse take on sexual politics.

The film opens with two gangsters on the lam in Northern England. A botched job has left the British crook Albie (Jack MacGowan) with a shotgun blast to the gut and his brutish American cohort Dickie (Lionel Stander) with a useless arm. When their stolen car dies in the middle of nowhere, Dickie goes searching for help. The only place for miles is an 11th-century mansion on a hill that looks down on the sea. The residents of this out-of-the-way villa are George (Donald Pleasance), an older war vet, and his young French wife, Teresa (Francoise Dorléac). On his way up the hill, Dickie spies Teresa rolling naked in the sand with a neighbor boy, leading him to draw certain conclusions about her, and his first encounter with the relative newlyweds as a couple in the dead of night interrupts their bedroom playtime. They were goofing around, and George is wearing Teresa's nightgown and he let her put make-up on his face. What was a joke becomes a defining factor in the relationship between the fugitive and his hostages. The burly thug is a true man, and George is his bitch.

Cul-de-sac plays out over 24 hours, as Dickie waits for his London bosses to pick him up from the isolated locale. The tide comes in shortly after the car stalls, stranding Albie up to his chest in water, and the only way in and out that night is by boat. George caves to the imprisonment, stoking already existing tensions between him and his wife. Eager for the attention of a real man, and determined to start a fight between her husband and their captor, Teresa spends the night drinking homemade vodka with the bad guy, who is, let's be honest, charismatic and gregarious despite his rather abusive nature and poor career choices. This is likely intentional. Polanski--who co-wrote the script with Gérard Brach--is forcing us to like the person that is supposed to be the least likeable one the trio. Teresa is manipulative and dishonest, and George is spineless and fawning. It's not just that he won't stand up to Dickie--who never even really has to pull his gun--but we know that George also kowtows to his wife. Pleasance plays George as slimy and mercurial, physically shrinking from just about any human action. He would have made an excellent Igor to any number of cinematic Dr. Frankensteins.

Roman Polanski can be a polarizing figure, and Cul-de-sac would do little to discourage any viewer that has previously taken issue with his approach to gender divides. Teresa's desire to be dominated by a "real" man and her sexualized behavior (she flirts with almost every male character in the film, and it's to Francoise Dorléac's supreme credit that she somehow makes this woman appear deeper than the writing), and George's cross-dressing buffoonery are certainly provocative elements of an intentionally provocative film. Throughout Dickie's stay on the island, the social order keeps changing. He goes from being drinking buddies with Teresa to climbing in his cups with George, and come morning, the whole dynamic gets upended when George's relatives pay an unexpected visit. Teresa sees an opportunity to take control, and she basically introduces Dickie as their servant. This injects class concerns into the mix, a poisonous stew stirred up further by how the family treats George. I think this lends credence to the argument that Polanski isn't adopting any particular point of view, nor is there a pronounced macho agenda; rather, he is using a familiar hothouse scenario to apply stress to his characters' lives and watch how they react. Ultimately, the plot of Cul-de-sac is a pressure cooker that scorches them all. Anyone expecting good guys or bad guys or any last-minute rescue or triumph is probably right to expect these things under the rules of ordinary crime movies, but Cul-de-sac is not cut from those trappings.

I would contend that the conflicts portrayed in Polanski movies also extend to his aesthetic approach. His movies are at once meticulous and sloppy, tightly wound but also fraying at the edges. Cul-de-sac is a smartly planned drama, with an elegant plot structure and carefully arranged framing, but there is always a little bit of anarchy, be it a blunt editing choice or slapdash overdubbing or a sudden camera move that throws the visual rhythm into disarray. Breakfast with George's family begins as a well-choreographed tableau of social manners and interpersonal rigidity, but the sudden introduction of a shotgun creates a narrative panic. To capture the spontaneous frenzy, cinematographer Gilbert Taylor zooms in unnaturally close on each actor, distorting their features, and breaking the respectful spatial relationships that Polanski has established. The change-up appears almost haphazard and amateurish, but it perfectly illustrates the hysteria of the sequence. The unpredictable introduction of violence would disrupt our lives off screen, so why shouldn't it do so onscreen, as well?

The film eventually returns to its central three as the second night descends, with a climax that shows how far out of control they have gotten and the effects of further compromises and lines being crossed. It could be said that their true natures emerge, that George is a rat and Teresa is empty and Dickie's bluster can only blow for so long. None gets off lightly, regardless. The clash of ideals and wills and the resulting fallout is as natural and inevitable as the tide, which rolls back in on schedule, isolating those that remain even further. In most movies that deal in archetypes, we look for the one that most closely resembles our own nature; in a movie like Cul-de-sac, we leave hoping that we are none of them, and in the worst case scenario, fearing we just might be.

Criterion's Blu-Ray of Cul-de-sac gives viewers a high-definition 1080p image framed at a wide 1.66:1 aspect ratio. The black-and-white picture is sharply realized, with strong darks, lights, and nuanced shades of gray. Though the print still has some surface markings at times, usually in the form of slight scratches in the upper half of the frame, this is rare, and the overall resolution and clarity of image is fantastic, with a subtle grain that maintains the quality of the original film stock without being overly pronounced on modern television sets.

The soundtrack is mixed in mono, uncompressed. It sounds excellent, with full tones and no distortion. Some of the actors tend to mumble and this can be hard to make out, but the shifting volume levels suggest this is intentional, all part of Polanski's off-balance design. Likewise, the wonky Krysztof T. Komeda music takes an appropriate position in each scene, often ironically underscoring the action with his blending of odd electronic noises with more traditional melodies.

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

SIDELINE: MORE REVIEWS FOR 3/10

Welcome to April...

IN THEATRES...

* Alice in Wonderland, Tim Burton's ego-driven "reimagining" of a classic that didn't need his help.

* The Art of the Steal, a documentary about Philadelphia's appropriation of the legendary Barnes Foundation and its art collection.

* Chloe, a Skinimax flick wearing the lingerie of high art. I wasn't fooled. Which is amazing, because I'm easily distracted by boobs.

* Clash of the Titans. Yes, yes, I know you want big monsters fighting, but do you also want to be bored by those same monsters and totally unimpressed by the digital effects and 3D? Then by all means, let the gods punish you.

* The Ghost Writer. What's all the fuss about the new Roman Polanski? What's the hubbub, bub?

* Greenberg, an emotional suckerpunch of a movie from Noah Baumbach, who pulls an amazing performance out of Ben Stiller. I love this movie so much, and it only gets better the longer it sits in my brain.

* Green Zone, the new one from the Bourne guys goes heavy on the action and the politics.

* Hot Tub Time Machine - Not a comedy, but a Republican fantasy about going back in time to the Reagan era and then returning to the modern world to discover your actions in the past caused the victory of Capitalism. Also, lots of boobs. More failure for boobs this week. The world has gone crazy!!!

* The Most Dangerous Man in America: Daniel Ellsberg & the Pentagon Papers, a compelling documentary about the man who tried--and kind of succeeded--to stop the Vietnam War.

ON DVD...

* 44 Inch Chest, a talky British gangster drama that loses its way, squandering an amazing cast that features Ray Winstone, Tom Wilkinson, John Hurt, and the might Ian McShane.

* The Beaches of Agnes, the enchanting self-portrait by the first lady of the New Wave, Agnes Varda.

* The Brothers Warner, a mild profile of the guys who started the famous studio that bears their name.

* Ciao, an indie film searching for love in the midst of loss. Flawed, but shows great potential.

* An Education, one of my favorites of 2009 is now on DVD. A wonderful character study that brings early 1960s London to life.

* Fantastic Mr. Fox, the irresistible stop-motion animated movie from Wes Anderson. Well, you could resist it, but why would you hate yourself that much?

* Gigante, an oddball subversion of the romance genre from Uruguay. Also coupled with the even better Danish short Dennis.

* Gogol Bordello Non-Stop, a documentary about the gypsy punks.

* More Than This: The Story of Roxy Music, not the most comprehensive Roxy documentary, to be sure, but I liked it.

* Paris, in which Cédric Klapisch bites off more than he can chew trying to portray a whole city. A fine performance by Juliette Binoche makes it watchable, though.

* Young Sherlock Holmes, repacking an old childhood favorite. I find the movie holds up.

REPULSION - #483

Had everything I'd read about Roman Polanski's 1965 creeper Repulsion not tagged it as a horror film, I am not sure I would have realized it was one. Certainly not in the first twenty minutes or so, when Catherine Deneuve's silent, petulant wandering seemed more like affected malaise than a supernatural dread. Not that there is anything wrong with that, I could watch a pretty blonde girl bite on her fingernails for far longer than is probably natural. It also serves Polanski's greater purpose: he is establishing a tenuous reality that the rest of Repulsion will soon be dismantling.

Deneuve plays Carol, a transplanted French beauty who lives in London with her sister, Helen (Yvonne Furneaux). Carol works in a high-class beauty salon, where she is a manicurist for gaudy rich women who alternately treat her as a servant and as a child, demanding she jump at their command and then listen to their advice about men. It's wasted advice, however, since Carol is already wary of the male species. From what Polanski and director of photography Gilbert Taylor show us with their camera, it's with good reason, too. Adopting Carol's point of view, we see 1960s London as a predatory jungle where sweaty bruisers cruise for chicks. Their unwelcome gaze, their even more unwelcome comments, even their unwelcome toiletries--Helen's boyfriend Michael (Ian Hendry) is leaving his razors and things in their bathroom, crowding Carol's personal items--men are constantly encroaching on Carol's existence. Even Colin (John Fraser), the nice guy who is trying to score a date with Carol, runs with wolves. Cutaways to him and his buddies in the pub might as well be set in the locker room for all the randy talk that goes on.

Signs that something is wrong start out normal enough. Hearing Helen and Michael have sex through the walls keeps Carol up, and that's enough reason not to like anyone. Even Carol's fascination with cracks in the sidewalk is understandable: when you're bored, the smallest things become alluring. Even if we don't understand what it is yet, Carol senses that her world is about to shatter. Helen is planning a trip to Italy with Michael, and Carol does not want her to go. Then she will be truly alone, there will be no one else in the apartment, and whatever is waiting to come in, will.

Here Carol's visions grow more sinister. The walls around her start to crack and crumble. The mirror, portrayed in this film as a private place where a woman can gaze at herself and no one else can look back at her (even in the elevator, Helen checking herself in the mirror seems a legitimate way to turn away from Michael; and, indeed, his bathroom stuff is crowding Carol's own mirror space) is now revealing a shadowy figure lurking in the background, intruders in both physical and reflected space. (Again, Michael's earlier presence foreshadowed this sense of unease in her own home; she never knows when he's going to be there.) As Carol gives up and locks herself in, even things that are really there start to decay, to become symbols of her madness--the over-flown bathtub (why not drain it?), the rotting rabbit carcass (why not throw it away?). As the reality grows more sickened, the visions get more violent. The figure comes out of the shadows and violates her. This lack of security makes any real visitor, even someone she knows, a potential threat and not to be trusted. Carol must fight back.

It's easy to flash forward and compare Repulsion to Rosemary's Baby, another Polanski film about a woman who may be going mad and who has visions of a demonic force taking advantage of her sexually. In that later movie, the satanic element is confirmed as real, however, and in Repulsion, we can never be sure if any of this extends beyond Carol's mind. Sure, she wakes up on the floor, undressed and not sure how she got there, after one of the attacks, but she has also blacked out, and there is no other evidence of what happened. Though there are many tell-tale signs that Carol could be cursed--from the rabbit to the gruesome object she carries in her purse--there is no explanation of who might have cursed her or why. I hesitate to even use the word curse when talking about a movie that is portraying feminine problems, as that carries connotations that aren't in the picture. Polanski and co-writer Gerard Brach are more concerned with the outside societal influence that has driven Carol to this state, and they make no suggestion that this is something being perpetrated by her own body.

On top of the lecherous behavior of the men she encounters, Carol seems stuck in a woman's role, trapped by outmoded ideas of what a girl like her should be doing with her life. Working in a salon, with an emphasis on beauty and appearance, demoralizes her. When she first shows signs of "trouble," the use of the word, particularly by her boss (Valerie Taylor), implies pregnancy. Carol should be a happy girl, and if she's mopey, it's because she's gotten up to things she shouldn't have. So, on one side, the men expect it of her, and on the other, the women condemn her for what is expected.

Given Repulsion's portrayal of madness and how it specifically relates to a woman in a changing world, a natural comparison would be "The Yellow Wallpaper" by Charlotte Perkins Gilman. In that short story, published in 1892, a woman is confined to one room because no one around her understands the nature of her mental problems, and the writer tracks the descent into madness that inevitably takes place the more isolated she becomes. There is even a point where things begin to come out of the walls, much like a later scene in Repulsion. This film also reminds me of The Hours, both the book and the movie, and the way it depicts how the expectations in the lives of a trio of women weigh on them. In the one stunning scene of the very flawed movie (and a scene not in Michael Cunningham's book), director Stephen Daldry shows Julianne Moore's psychosis as a rising flood consuming her and the room she sleeps in. This one scene could also sum up Repulsion, and could even be said to echo the bathtub in Polanski's movie. One interesting distinction, though: all of these other women have connections, have people and family they are beholden to, and still feel alone. Carol really is alone, totally disconnected from all others, and she has no idea how to change that. The closest she has is her sister, hence her urgency in trying to keep Helen from leaving.

Horror movies are often just depictions of madness made real, anyway. So many of the best and spookiest ghost stories follow characters that see things no one else can see, and then ending with a big question mark about whether any of it actually happened or not. The scene that Helen and Michael return from Italy to find is typical of that, with nobody besides Carol being privy to what happened (and strangely, Michael maybe turning out to be a kind of hero...?). The technique Polanski employs to capture the bending of Carol's mind is straight out of the carnival funhouse: distorted angles, extreme close-ups, mirror tricks, gooey walls, disembodied limbs belonging to unseen attackers. The black-and-white photography has a sharp, kitchen-sink grittiness, with on-the-street scenes straight out of the Nouvelle Vague; yet, Repulsion is very pretty at the same time, with Polanski lovingly framing Catherine Deneuve in extended shots where the viewer can just sit and stare at how beautiful she is (making us members of the demons lying in wait just out of frame?). It's the visual dichotomy of the movie: the loveliness of the individual vs. the ugliness of the world. As an actress, Deneuve seems to understand this split. She knows how she looks, she also knows how she feels, and she is not afraid to let both the outward and the inward exist simultaneously.

Repulsion is an often delirious, altogether creepy little movie, with a fair share of "gotcha!" scares and plenty of grotesque imagery that insinuates itself into one's brain. "Haunting" is a good word. The residual of its frights lingers. At the same time, it has a psychological depth that goes beyond bumps in the night. In its portrait of one woman at odds with her own mind, it gets underneath the surface of most horror stories and points to where the fear really comes from. It may be called Repulsion, but trust me, you're going to find yourself drawn completely in.

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

SIDELINE: MORE REVIEWS FOR 01/09

In addition to my Criterion reviews, here are other reviews film fans of similar tastes might find of interest from the last month:

IN THEATRES...

* Ciao, a lo-fi drama about love and grief

* The Class, fact and fiction collide in this French film about an inner-city school.

ON DVD...

* Being There: Deluxe Edition, the classic comedic fable from Jerzy Kosinski, Hal Ashby, and Peter Sellers. Delightful!

* Funny Face - The Centennial Collection, a new release of an old Audrey Hepburn favorite. Goes well with Audrey Hepburn Remembered

* Roman Polanski: Wanted and Desired, a meticulous look at the sex scandal that caused the revered director to flee the U.S. Very fascinating stuff.

KNIFE IN THE WATER - #215

A small sailboat becomes the center of male competition in Roman Polanski's tense 1962 debut, Knife in the Water. When a middle-aged Polish couple heads out for a Sunday on the water, they nearly crash their car trying to avoid a hitchhiker (Zygmunt Malanowicz) whose technique for flagging down rides is to stand in the middle of the road and play chicken with oncoming cars. At first angry, the husband, Andrzej (Leon Niemczyk), curses the nineteen-year-old; yet, he also senses his wife's attraction and sympathy for the boy, so to prove a point, he gives the hitcher a ride and then convinces him to go out on their trip with them.

From the get-go, Andrzej and the boy are at odds. The boy shows off his knife, and Andrzej shows off his boat, knowing the kid doesn't have the skills to handle it. The hitcher and his knife make claims to being tied to the land, where a man lives on his feet and by his hands, where a knife is necessary. A blade is ineffective against water, and Andrzej is convinced the open sea requires more skill and mental tenacity to navigate. It's philosophical and it requires tactical know-how, you can't just hack and slash your way through. He claims the mantle of skipper and orders the boy around. It's the battle of young and old, father and son, a clash of generations.

And yet it's totally childish. The men show off for one another, and what each one does, the other has to try. If Andrzej can captain the boat, the young man wants to do it, too. When the young man plays a game with his knife where he lays his hand flat, splays his fingers, and stabs the blade in between them, Andrzej sheepishly picks the weapon up when the boy is not looking and takes a crack at it himself. When the boy whistles, the older man shushes him, invoking a maritime superstition, but then whistles himself, either forgetting or having now been caught in a lie. When the hitcher makes fun of a tool Andrzej uses to hold a hot metal soup pot, Andrzej goads him into holding it with his bare hands.

One would think the two men are showing off for the benefit of Krystyna (Jolanta Umecka), Andrzej's wife and the woman after which the sailboat has been named. Half the time, though, it doesn't even look like they notice her. Even though it's taken for granted that she is the unnamed prize of this standoff, Polanski and his writers, Jerzy Skolimowski and Jakub Goldberg, understand that most masculine contests are contests of approval. In some way, the youngster wants dear old dad to think he's okay, while pops wants the kid to think he's cool. (Copying his whistling may be an unconscious attempt on Andrzej's part to appear youthful.) There is also a touch of the homoerotic when they play their knife game, with Andrzej submitting to let the other man work the blade through his fingers. Still, they never touch one another, and Polanski smartly withholds any real violence until it really matters; it's almost more pathetic when no one is getting punched in the nose.

Polanski is also sly enough to underplay Krystyna's role. Her reactions are few and far between, and they mostly are the result of exasperation that the boy doesn't know what to do and her husband won't just get it over with and tell him. From the first time we see Krystyna, however, Polanski locks us into a slow physical seduction. In the car, she has her hair up and wears pointed secretary classes. She is pretty, but she is holding back--not waiting to be unleashed like some sexy librarian stereotype, but instead waiting to reveal herself and her role in all of this. As soon as the group is on the water, Krystyna changes into a skimpy bikini. The male gaze is immediately drawn to her. The boy--and the viewer--is always aware of where she is, and Andrzej--along with, once again, the viewer--is always aware that he's aware. He catches every little look, including the boy sneaking a peek when she is changing, as well as noting every time Krystyna comes to the young man's defense.

The dichotomy here is probably best represented in a scene down in the hull, where the three of them have retreated to wait out a rainstorm. They play pick-up sticks (or jackstraw, as it's called here), and every time someone loses, he or she has to forfeit some personal object. Krystyna gives up a shoe, the young man his belt and then his knife--prompting another contest, a phallocentric knife toss, which Krystyna stops after the boy's second throw, blocking her husband from getting a second try in the contest. She then asks what she must do to get her shoe back. The boy demands a song, an idea Andrzej shoots down. He'd rather listen to the boxing match on the radio. They compromise, and Andrzej puts on an earpiece. His wife sings with a girlish shyness, prompted by the boy, and then in return, he recites a poem for her to regain his belt. Her song is one of troubled love, his poem is about a young man's desires. For his part, Andrzej can only wonder aloud how he missed the announcement of the Polish middleweight champ getting defeated. "How did he get k.o.'d?" he asks, completely oblivious to the irony of the question. How did the inattentive husband get knocked out in his own boat?

If you consider that the boat is named for Krystyna, it's a none-to-subtle reinforcement of what the battle between the two men is over, and since it's the boat they rely on to get them home, also an indicator of who might be in control. By morning, Krystyna's transformation is complete. The once bundled-up woman now has her hair down, and she sits smoking on the deck, wearing only a long sweater that suggests she may have nothing on underneath (strangely, she's concealing a one-piece bathing suit, which is like the heftier twin of her bikini, a similar style and the same color). She has completely freed herself from the restraints of the land, she is fully sexualized, and it prompts a showdown.

Just as Krystyna finds a certain feminine freedom on the water (a fertility symbol, no less), so too are the men free now of the restraints of polite society. Though there is surprisingly little action in this climactic battle, it does call to mind the animal that was unleashed in Sam Bowden when he lead Max Cady out to sea for their final squaring off in both versions of Cape Fear. One can also imagine Michael Haneke taking notes in preparation for the cat-and-mouse of Funny Games. Yet, Polanski's pitting intelligence against libido calls to mind Peckinpah's Straw Dogs more than Haneke's cruel thriller. When Krystyna finally has her say, she could practically be summing up Peckinpah's conclusion: "You men, you're all the same." Of course, what she does next also has all the ambiguity of Peckinpah's sexual politics, and given Polanski's history and some of his other films, could be as hotly debated.

The choice to place Knife in the Water on a boat also has a visual significance that Polanski and his cinematographer, Jerzy Lipman, exploit to the fullest. The setting is its own contradiction: this trio has both everywhere to go and yet nowhere. On the boat, they are cramped, forced together, and Polanski frames them as such. At the same time, the world all around them is vast and open, and so he and Lipman can pull away to show their isolation on a grander scale. The travelers appear small against the vast sky, and the shore, along with the civilization it supports, far away, mere dots on the horizon. No one else is out there to see what they do to each other. A victim can't be saved, an aggressor won't be punished.

Though commonly classified as a thriller, Knife in the Water is less of a suspense film than it is a terse and cynical drama about marriage. The final scenes reveal what this has all been for. If the pick-up sticks game was the combination, the ending is the lock opening. Polanski chooses not to show us any decisions on the part of the couple, but rather to leave them stuck in between. Do they trust each other anymore? Did they ever? Has this all been a game to add a little spice to the stew? Or is this truly where two people bored with each other end up?

The second disc in the Knife in the Water Criterion set features eight of the short films Polanski made between 1957 and 1962. In them, you can see some of his obsessions and visual tics beginning to emerge. Early themes include crime, desire, and invasion. The earliest and shortest pieces, the completely soundless "Murder" and "Teeth Smile," show a single killing and a peeping tom, respectively. His first film with sound, "Break Up the Dance," features a staged prank where Polanski unleashes the town's delinquents on an unsuspecting school dance and films what happens when the outsiders make their way in. It's like his own initial assault on cinema. He even uses a figure diving into a fountain as the moment to cut the music and remove any pretense of good times at the gathering--water being integral to a lot of his films, including, of course, Knife in the Water and Chinatown. The prosecuting attorney in Polanski's sex scandal in the late 1970s even noted in the recent documentary Roman Polanski: Wanted and Desired that when he watched the director's films to get a sense of the man, the presence of water as the psychological fulcrum in the majority of his stories lent added significance to the fact that the sexual assault happened after Polanski photographed his victim in a jacuzzi.

The titular two men and their wardrobe in "Two Men and a Wardrobe" actually emerge from the ocean carrying their little piece of furniture. It's a dark take on the classic comedic duo paradigm, the men wandering through the city oblivious to the human cruelty that goes on around them. That is, until the mirror their wardrobe holds up to life reflects the wrong image and the city folk turn against them. Unlike, say, Laurel and Hardy, these two don't win in the end, they retreat, the only sign that they maintain their compassion as they return to the drink is they manage not to crush any of the sand turrets a little boy has erected on the beach.

Just as the two men came out of the vast sea, so too did that film take Polanski out of Poland. From there, his films would become more experimental ("The Lamp") and expansive ("When Angels Fall" features an old woman ruminating on the life she's lived, though the film lacks an integrity of point-of-view and Polanski has her remember things she would not have witnessed). To extend the notion of some of these shorts as parables for Polanski and his film career, then we could also see "The Fat and the Lean," with its young man (played by Polanski himself) enslaved to a brutish, corpulent older fellow with the dazzling Parisian skyline always within eyeshot as the Polish filmmaker yearning for a more discerning film industry than his homeland provided. Though, obviously, the short is most likely intended as a political allegory about the abuses of power and the way people begin to accept that abuse as compassion.

The set of shorts ends on a playful note, with Polanski returning to the idea of a comedic duo. "Mammals" follows two bumblers traversing across a snowy landscape. Ostensibly a string of gags, much of its purpose appears to be in allowing the director to experiment with film stock and various effects (the one man's flickering suit is bizarre, almost like a mistake--was it?). Like most of the films here, it is a silent movie. All but two of these selections ("Break up the Dance" and "When Angels Fall") are shot as silent films with only music and sound effects. Polanski didn't think short subjects should have dialogue getting in the way of the storytelling. That's quite a challenge for a rookie filmmaker, but by "Angels" and "The Fat and the Lean," the confidence that would lead to Knife in the Water is firmly in place--and well earned.

Polanski in "The Fat and the Lean"