Rem's Film Diary

Some thoughts on some films that I see.

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To Be or Not to Be (1942)

This is one of the funniest films I’ve ever seen. Especially the ‘fake beard’ scene had me laughing out loud. The writing is unbelievably clever. The sheer amount of lines and moments that are reincorporated for comic effect is impressive, to say the least.

The manner in which fascism is satirised is equally clever. The Nazis all behave like idiots, but there is always a reason to their idiocy: either they are brainwashed to obey any command without question, or they act out of terror of their superiors. They’ll go so far as to jump out of a plane without a parachute, just because they were told to do so.

Ultimately, the message is that none of the Nazis have even the slightest ability to think for themselves. The banality of evil is somehow made funny.

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Little Joe (2019)

Little Joe manages to be, at the same time, very subtle and not subtle at all. 

The text is subtle - it’s like a low key version of Invasion of the Bodysnatchers - but the subtext is almost shouted at you through the screen. There are multiple scenes in which the protagonist visits a therapist who all but breaks the fourth wall as she spells out the film’s themes for us. I would like to see a version of the film with those scenes simply taken out. 

Any gripes I have with the film are in the writing. I can’t fault anything else about it. Credit must especially go to the production and costume design, both of which are exquisite. The film is great fun, and very much worth a watch.

Seen at the London Film Festival 2019.

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Ugetsu (1953)

*SPOILERS*

Brilliant in many ways, but I wasn’t keen on the supernatural elements that are brought in near the end. It makes thematic sense to show how the casualties of civil war continue to haunt the living (literally, in this film’s case). But I felt like I had to switch gears from a realist film to a supernatural film over halfway through.

Perhaps I will be able to suspend my disbelief better on a second watch, knowing what the film is ultimately building towards.

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The Souvenir (2019)

The words ‘subtly devastating’ come to mind. You start out by laughing at Antony for how transparent his ‘sophisticated adult’ act is. But the film gets disturbing quite quickly once you realise how easily Julie is manipulated by it. There were many laughs in the audience when the film began, and none by the end.

I do think the film could have been cut down a little in the last third. It’s as if the story hit a wall at which point we were only given information we already knew until the very end. I do want to see the film a second time before I make up my mind about that.

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Fuego (1969)

Such drama! Thank you, John Waters, for introducing me to a film in which the protagonist ultimately has to commit suicide to be put out of her erotic misery. Steve McQueen’s Shame (2011) pales in comparison!

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Midsommar (2019)

I wasn’t a fan of Midsommar, I’m sad to say. The film felt a lot like Hereditary, but without the payoff. (I am one of the people that thought Hereditary’s ending made, rather than broke, the film.)

No one can deny that Ari Aster is a brilliant director. Like Hereditary, Midsommar is directed with insane confidence and it’s full of interesting audiovisual ideas. The strange thing is that the inventive direction eventually started to annoy me. I found myself longing for a scene that was simply done as a shot/reverse shot. I suppose I didn’t see much point to Aster’s complicated direction once it became clear that the film wasn’t going to offer us any particularly shocking revelations. 

I’m sure this isn’t the case, but it did feel like Aster and crew were showing off more than they were trying to make an engaging film.

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The Seventh Seal (1957)

Hot take: this is a really good film!

I initially found the knight’s crisis of faith a bit obnoxious. “But what if God doesn’t exist?” isn’t a particularly difficult question to come up with. But the film slowly won me over scene by scene.

Ultimately the film paints an uncompromisingly dark picture of Medieval faith in the face of an inexplicable tragedy (the plague, in this case). No matter how strongly someone believes, in this film every character questions their faith in their final moments before death. I can only imagine the terror such people must have faced.

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Street of Shame (1956)

How great is it to see a film from the 50′s that stands up for sex workers’ rights in a way that we rarely see even today? It does not shy away from portraying the horrors of the profession, as well as the stigma that sex workers face from family, friends, and strangers alike. The fact that prostitution was banned in Japan just months after this film’s release goes to show how politically relevant it must have been at the time.

And yet the protagonists don’t get off so easily either. None of them are saints - they manipulate their customers’ feelings to scam them out of vast amounts of money, and they unapologetically recruit young naive girls to grow their business. And, of course, the brothel is ultimately run by a man who pockets a large part of their earnings without having to do any of the dirty work.

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X-Men: Dark Phoenix (2019)

I am taken aback by how much fans of the X-Men franchise appear to hate this film. I thought it was perfectly decent. The story was interesting and easy to follow, and I especially liked how they concluded Professor X’s story. Also, Sophie Turner shows that she has the acting chops to carry a big blockbuster. She deserves to get more leading roles out of this.

What I didn’t expect to stand out so much was this film’s sound. The sound design, and the way it was mixed with Hans Zimmer’s roaring score, was quite overwhelming at times. For me it was the defining factor in making Jean Grey’s powers feel convincingly terrifying.

I say all of this as someone who isn’t particularly invested in the X-Men universe. I didn’t see the last instalment of the franchise, but this works very well as a standalone film (as long as you have a basic understanding of who the characters are). Perhaps it doesn’t work as a part of a larger story, but I can’t comment on that at this time.

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John Wick: Chapter 3 - Parabellum (2019)

It’s quantum, baby!

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Woman at War (2019, dir. Benedikt Erlingsson)

One of my favourite films of the year so far! It blends the personal with the political in a way I haven’t really seen before. The film’s humour ranges from plain silly to surreal to quite on-the-nose satyrical, and each kind has its place.

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Yuli (2019, dir. Icíar Bollaín)

A beautiful film, made all the more poignant by having the final monologue delivered by Carlos Acosta himself. Most biopics I’ve seen have the real person appear in archive footage during the credits. Having Carlos Acosta actually play the eldest iteration of himself was a stroke of genius.

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Fantastic Beasts: The Crimes of Grindelwald (2018, dir. David Yates)

A very frustrating watch. The whole story felt like it should have been the opening 10 minutes of whatever the rest of the story is going to be. I never thought I’d say this, but I probably won’t be watching the next one...

(Who am I kidding? Of course I will.)

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Sansho the Bailiff (1954, dir. Kenji Mizoguchi)

I watched this film knowing next to nothing about it. So, naturally, I didn’t expect find myself sobbing uncontrollably by the end. But here we are...

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Black Narcissus (1947, dir. Powell & Pressburger)

I have finally seen a Powell & Pressburger to rival my love for A Matter of Life and Death! Will is surpass it on a rewatch? Perhaps not, seeing as the exoticism in this film kind of rubbed me the wrong way at times.

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Sunset (2019, dir. László Nemes)

Like everyone else who saw Son of Saul, I was eagerly anticipating this film. 

Sadly, this is one of the most frustrating films I’ve seen in a long time, and I believe it all came down to the writing. Most of the film’s scenes end before any significant revelations take place - either the characters are interrupted by something, or the main character is told to go away, and she does. Perhaps this was done to create an air of mystery, but the result was that it felt like the film was stopping and starting again at each scene transition. By the end I still didn’t quite understand what was going on.

I’m also not sure the film benefitted from being presented the same way as Son of Saul. It looked beautiful, and the more dramatic scenes were very involving, but I don’t think limiting the field of view to a close-up of the protagonist made as much thematic sense here.

Nevertheless, I am still looking forward to László Nemes’ next film.

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If Beale Street Could Talk (2018, dir. Barry Jenkins)

I didn’t expect it, but this is my favourite film by Barry Jenkins so far. That this film isn’t as talked about as Moonlight (at least here in the UK) is beyond me.