Picnic at Hanging Rock (1975)

In our modern world today, people, especially children, will sometimes disappear into thin air. We all assume the worst when this happens, and in a vast majority of the incidents, the answer as to what has happened to the missing is never found. Cinema, when dealing with this phenomenon, will mostly attempt to visualize what has happened to the missing. That is not always the case, and Peter Weir’s mythicized and eerie movie, “Picnic at Hanging Rock,” is an example of one such film that does the exact opposite.

The movie is set in the year 1900, in the outback region of Australia. Based on a popular 1967 novel of the same name, the plot is a fictionalized account of the strange disappearance of three schoolgirls and one of their teachers. On Valentine’s Day in 1900, a group of teenage girls from a strict boarding school situated in the middle of the Australian wilderness go out on a much-anticipated outing to a picturesque location called Hanging Rock. Three of them and one teacher climb above the picnic site and do not return, while one will be found a few days later unconscious and, upon waking up, without any memory as to what has happened to her. The rest of the movie revolves around how this terrible incident affects the rest of the school as well as two local boys who were at the site of the disappearance when it happened. 

The New Australian Cinema that began at the start of the 1970s would very often deal with the cultural clash between the civilized western or European world and the wild, ingenious world of the local Aboriginals. “Picnic at Hanging Rock” is no different but chooses to place its emphasis on the mystic aspect of the people from the land of which they have inherited. In the film, the school is this great Victorian structure surrounded by controlled gardens and oozing with structure and order. Its appearance in the middle of the outback seemed obscene to me. The school is contrasted greatly with the rising geological structure, which is “Hanging Rock.” Rising above the land, this geological outcropping becomes ominous, and Weir films it in such a way that it looks alive with eyes staring out at those who would defile it. 

In addition, the teenage girls at the picnic wear matching virginal white corsets and dresses along with elegant shoes that are so unsuitable for the landscape that they become symbolic in this clash of cultures. The girls will write fantasy love letters before the trip, and when the three girls decide to explore, they need to remove parts of their cumbersome clothing, including their shoes. There is a clear sexual suppression that I felt within their forced social behavior and their need to let loose. While climbing up the rock, there are two local boys who lustily watch them. Are those boys part of the mystery? I initially thought so, until later, when I found out that one of the boys went out desperately searching for the lost girls. The movie is full of hints as to what happened that will then be debunked later. It is an ultimate mystery, except that it isn’t, because if it were, it would be a failure.

What Weir does succeed with in his beautifully shot film is leaving me with a feeling of spiritual mysticism within the ancient land that these controlled girls have invaded. The eyes I saw in the rock and the fear inherent in the teacher who went missing were ingrained in the misty cinematography. For me, it became clear that something unearthly occurred at the picnic, but like everyone else, I did not know what it was. 

Weir’s decision to not concentrate on the mystery but rather on how the mystery effects its surroundings make this a very different and special film. Helping him out in creating his slow-burning, almost chilling atmosphere is the panpipe-driven folk music that drives the soundtrack. The music reminded me of the original “Wicker Man,” with its sinister-sounding feel. Especially during the scenes on the rock itself. In developing this style, the movie further emphasizes how some of the scariest threats are those enveloped in civility. Not only on the Rock, but even in the school, a girl who is a bit of a rebel and was banned from going on the trip is abused by the cold, hard headmistress. In fact, the spelled-out tragedy that does occur in the movie becomes something separate from the event of the missing girls, although Weir makes it clear that the tragic events are a direct result of the class of cultures. A class that is more spiritual, even sensual, than physical or sexual. 

Full of a mystic feel and sprinkled with suppressed tension throughout, “Picnic and Hanging Rock” fails as a crime mystery but succeeds gloriously as an unsolved tale that could or could not be a ghost story. It is a movie that lingers long after the closing credits and is a treasure from the rich new Australian cinema. 

Raise Ravens (Cria Cuervos) (1976)

Movies about childhood seen through the eyes of a child are some of the most difficult films to get right. This is mostly due to the struggle to find a convincing child actor. The Spanish director Carlos Saura had the advantage of seeing one such child actress perform in Victor Erice’s brilliant film, “The Spirit of the Beehive.”  Her name is Ana Torrent, and she is once again thoroughly convincing in Saura’s sad view of three girls who quickly become parentless during the final years of Franco’s fascist dictatorship in his poignant film, “Cria Cuervos.” 

Torrent portrays Ana, an 8-year-old girl who also has two sisters, Conchi (11 years old) and Maite (5 years old). Recently, their mother died in the house from cancer, and the movie’s present time is set in the year Saura made the film (1975). The story is set inside their large and gloomy house outside of Madrid and opens as Ana is awakened by the sounds of love made by her father and his married lover. It seems that Ana blames her mother’s death on her father’s infidelity, as she sneaks outside their bedroom door when suddenly the lover screams, rushes out of the door, and runs away from the house as Ana discovers her father’s dead body on the bed, apparently from a heart attack. From there, her mother’s unmarried sister Paulina (Monica Randall) takes over the house and the responsibility of the three girls. The movie will then follow how life and coming of age occur for Ana, while intertwining Ana’s dream visions of her mother and flashbacks of when her mother and father were alive with futuristic foreshadowing interpretations of Ana as an adult. Portraying Ana’s mother in a dual role with the foreshadowed future adult Ana is Saura’s lover and friend, Geraldine Chaplin. Since the mother is an Englishwoman living in Spain, Chaplin, who is English, uses her own voice as the mother but has her voice dubbed when portraying the adult Ana.

Since this is a movie told from the perspective of a small child, the fantasy elements with Ana’s dead mother fit elegantly within the story, as children are always daydreaming, and a child who lost a loving parent will tend to daydream that the parent is still with them. Especially during times of pain and trauma. The fantasy mother first appears right at the start of the movie when Ana is washing a half-drunk glass of milk that she removed from her now-dead father’s night table. While in the kitchen washing the glass, the mother appears as a loving and tender comfort to the little girl. At this point in the film, I did not realize that the mother was already dead and that Ana was being comforted by her imagination. The scene sets the tone of the entire film, and once I was informed that the opening scene had made Ana an orphan, everything else fell into place. 

Seeing a future Ana speaking about her childhood, as that is all the future Ana does in the movie, was also a clever way for Saura to interpret how this childhood effects and creates the adult. I felt pain in the face of the adult Ana while seeing how her childhood continued as an orphan. All of these separate elements between reality, fantasy, the past, present, and future are not presented in a linear fashion, giving the entire film a surrealistic and poetic feel. 

Symbolism is used throughout the movie, and Saura used various clever props to instill mystery. For example, the glass of milk is imagined in Ana’s mind as being poisoned by her, and the weapon used is the death of her father, for whom she blames her mother’s death in a way that only a child can assign blame. The poison, of course, is in her mind and is used in other clever ways of showing childish empathy in the wonderful child that is Ana. Living in the big house is Ana’s invalid grandmother, whom everyone looks at with annoyance and treats like another piece of furniture. Except Ana, of course, who will speak to her grandmother and ask her what she wants. When she asks the grandmother if she wants to die, the old lady nods yes, and Ana will give her a glass of milk containing her imagined poison. Other symbolic elements of the movie, such as the men being military men, being cold and selfish, and the prison-like feel of the great house, were elements that did not leave that much of an impression on me. I was more interested in the world of the little girl.

While Aunt Paulina is a sad and cold person, she is also shown as having a heart and seems to truly care about the children. I appreciated the way that she was not portrayed as a villain. Her becoming the guardian of three girls was not her doing, and Saura shows her difficulty. Also, as an unmarried woman, she is depicted as a woman who is set in her ways, which makes a lot of sense. Through the eyes of Ana, she is not her mother, and as such, she is resentful of the little girl. Showing her as a real person and not a villain helps to add depth to the story. 

“Cria Cuervos is a sad movie, although within its sadness there are many spurts of childhood joy. Most of the joyful scenes are combined with the playing of Ana’s favorite (or only) music record. Ana’s mother was once a very promising pianist before she got married, and music was dear to Ana. The record is the pop song from 1975, “Porque te vas,” which is a delightfully catchy tune that children love. Ana plays the song to cheer herself up and dances with her sisters to its chirpy tune in one delightful scene.

While many people see “Cria Cuervos” as a metaphor for the end of Franco’s Spain, it is the sadness of a wonderful little girl’s exposure to reality that took me in and swept me away. As a movie made through the eyes of a child and as an interpretation of a child’s resilience over tragedy, it is a movie of extraordinary grace and power.

Salo, or the 120 days of Sodom (Salo o le 120 giornate di Sodoma) (1975)

Pier Paolo Pasolini was one of the new Italian cinema’s more intellectual directors. He was a director who saw poetry in almost everything he did, and his acclaimed cinematic version of the New Testament (The Gospel according to St. Matthew) is probably the Catholic Church’s best-loved version of the good book. Just before his violent death, Pasolini completed his personal indictment against fascism and the dangers of the human condition. The completed film, Salo, has been described as the most obscene movie ever made and as unwatchable. While I do not agree with it being the most obscene film, I did find the movie barely watchable and was forced to turn my gaze from the screen on numerous occasions while watching it. 

The movie is set during the waning days of World War II in the town of Salo, which was the headquarters at the time for Mussolini’s puppet Italian Social Republic. Four powerful men, the Duke (Paulo Bonacelli), who represents royalty; the Bishop (Giorgio Cataldi), who represents the church; the magistrate (Umberto P. Quinatvalle), who represents law; and the President (Aldo Valletti), who represents the political leadership, hold hostage a group of young men and women for the express purpose of having complete and unhindered power over them. Throughout 120 days, these four men, along with four teenage boy guards called the collaborators, four young soldiers chosen for their enlarged penis size called blackshirts, and four middle-aged prostitutes who recall daily stories concerning the worst things that happened to them in their profession, will torture and assault the 18 victims up until a horrific ending that is too terrible to describe here. 

The number four plays an important part in the plot, as in addition to its separation of the different protagonists into groups of four, Pasolini also divides the movie into four segments that are apparently inspired by Dante’s “Devine Comedy.”  The first segment, called Anteinferno, has the 18 victims being gathered and taken into custody. The second segment, called “The Circle of Manias,”  concerns the sexual tortures inflicted on the victims, which are devised daily based on the stories told by the prostitutes. The third segment, “Circle of Shit,”  while continuing with the sexual torture, has added to the obscenities forced consumption of human feces.  The final segment, called the Circle of Blood, shows in horrific detail the final fate of all the surviving hostages. 

This is a movie that shows what human beings are capable of if given all-consuming power over another human being. Its horrendous and depressing message is, sadly, not far from the truth. Even today, there are over 100 hostages who are under the same terrifying control as their captors, similar to the hostages shown in this movie. The obscenities shown in the film include both heterosexual and homosexual rape, crucifixion, hanging, tearing of tongues, the forced consumption of glass and shit, as well as much more. 

Pasolini uses mostly non-actors to portray his victims, and their campy performances allowed me to keep a safe distance from the torture instilled in them. Otherwise, the movie would be even more unwatchable than it is. In addition, the actors playing the four main torturers bring a certain glee to their roles. Some scenes are so outlandish that they actually reminded me of a bad Monty Python sketch.  For example, there is a discussion between the four men when looking at the hostage boys lying naked, regarding which of them has the most perfect ass. If the previous scenes were not so vile, I may have found this an attempt at humor. It is not, however, as it is just another attempt by Pasolini to show the levels of human depravity and insensitivity given to those who have ultimate power over others. 

Pasolini was a very talented director, and his filming of the decorative villa where these obscenities take place has a classic painting feel to it.  This makes sense since many classic paintings from the Italian Renaissance were violent and depicted torture. He also depicts the final and most horrific of scenes through the perspective of binoculars from above, through the eyes of the four tyrants, which reminded me a little bit of Hitchcock’s “Rear Window. Only in style, and unfortunately, not in content. 

Personally, I do not understand the people who find this movie somehow enlightening or important. I do not need Pasolini to tell me that people, uninhibited by any moral code, can be monstrous to each other. Watching this movie, I believe, is akin to watching a snuff film or a geek show at a carnival. Those who search it out are not looking for a message they can identify with. For this reason, I believe that Pasolini failed in his attempt to say something about the human condition. I chose to believe that human beings can also be good, and this movie ignores that truism completely. “Salo” is not a movie that I would recommend anyone watch. 

Monty Python and the Holy Grail (1975)

In the early 70s, five British comedians and one American illustrator created what, in my opinion, is the funniest TV show ever made, with “Monty Python’s Flying Circus”.   The group’s first foray into the cinematic world was a re-filming of their most beloved skits from the show.  When it was time for them to create an entirely original story for their 2nd movie, they chose to do an extremely satirized retelling of the medieval legend of King Arthur.   Choosing to make fun of what is probably Britain’s most beloved literary story was a perfect choice, as nobody could laugh at the English like the English themselves.  The Pythons, however, went beyond even that, as the resultant film not only parodied its source material, but all cinema as well.   The movie, “Monty Python and the Holy Grail”, attacks all that is cinema, from classic adventure movies to movie musicals and even the French New Wave.    The result is over 90 minutes of non-stop laughter.  

Since the Python’s had a very low budget, they could not afford to hire a large cast of actors, yet they were making a parody of an epic adventure story which would usually include a large cast of characters.  For this reason, all six members portray countless different roles in the movie, some as many as nine different parts.   Seeing the same actor as a different person and sometimes together with themselves adds to the way the film feels like a great indictment of the falsehood of adventure films in general.    Another example of this self-parody resourcefulness was due to the fact that the teams’ low budget would not allow them to rent out any real horses.    This was overcome by all the cast members pretending to be galloping with their feet and in the air while clicking together two coconuts made to imitate the sound of a galloping horse.   Throughout the movie, this is how the characters move from one location to the next.  It is so absurd that it continues to be funny throughout the film.   

The story of King Arthur and his knights within this movie revolves around their involvement in a quest to retrieve the Holy Grail, which, for the sake of the movie, is a magical cup that has godly healing powers.   They are sent on this quest by none other than God himself, who appears like a cut-out animated version of King Arthur floating in the sky.  This ploy is just an excuse to run through their various scenes incorporating comedic skits and movie parodies interlaced with an abundance of social satire that continues non-stop from the beginning until the very end of the movie.  

Chock-full of very funny scenes and skits, all of which make great fun of not only the King Aurthur legend, but medieval adventure films in general.    For example, in an adventure film, usually when the hero and his team are riding anywhere, they are accompanied by expansive, heroic music.   This is done with extreme exaggeration in the movie and the fact that the hero and his team are pretending to ride horses results in the music emphasizing the absurdness of the humor even more.   There are so many legendary funny segments in this movie that I hardly remember ever stopping to catch my breath in between bouts of laughter the first time a saw it.   Even now, after countless viewings, I find myself laughing out loud at various points in the film.   Some highlights of this are, King Arthur’s duel with the Black knight, Sir Lancelot’s massacre of the wedding banquet, the battle against the monster bunny rabbit, the crossing of the bridge of death, the knights who say Ni! and many more.     I will leave it up to those few who have yet to have seen the film to discover these hilarious gems for themselves.   

The Monty Python group consists of Graham Chapman- (King Arthur, the hiccupping guard, and the middle head of the Three-Headed Giant, as well as the voice of God), John Cleese (Sir Lancelot the Brave, the Black Knight, French Taunter, Tim the Enchanter, and many other roles), Terry Gilliam (Patsy Arthur’s servant, the Soothsaying Bridge keeper, the Green Knight, Sir Bors, himself as the Weak-Hearted Animator, and other roles), Eric Idle (Sir Robin the-not-quite-so-brave-as-Sir-Lancelot, Lancelot’s squire Concorde, the collector of the dead, Roger the Shrubber, Brother Maynard, and many other roles), Terry Jones (Sir Bedevere the Wise, Prince Herbert, Dennis’ mother, the left head of the Three-Headed Giant, and other roles, and Michael Palin (Sir Galahad the Pure, Leader of the Knights Who Say Ni, Lord of Swamp Castle, Dennis, right head of the Three-Headed Giant, film’s narrator, and other roles).  In each of their roles, the actors are clear as to who they are while clearly defining a different character.   As for ensemble acting, this movie has one of the greatest comedic ensemble casts found anywhere.  Their comedic acting talents are what define the Monty Python group.  

Terry Gillam and Terry Jones co-directed the movie as well.   While Jones would later direct my favorite Monty Python film (The Life of Brian) on his own, it is Gilliam who would develop into one of cinema’s more imaginative and creative directors.    As an animator, he knew how to create reality from nothing, allowing many of the repetitive landscapes to look different and authentic with some ingenious gender bending lighting.    There are scenes that are given the look and feel of a Hammer gothic horror film, while others have historical tones to them.  These creative set-ups are definitely due to the artistic sensibilities of Gilliam.    There is also quite a bit of showy parodies to art films, such as the breaking of the 4th wall that would then blend in together with the storyline.    You see, every once in a while, two characters will have a philosophical chat about the scientific possibilities of what is being depicted, or they will straight out state that a castle, for instance, is just an animated cut-out model (thanks to Gilliam, who drew all the Pythonist animation for the film).  Characters will also suddenly reference a scene number when speaking about what is currently occurring.

“Monty Python and the Holy Grail” is a movie that will always continue to make me laugh.  It is a timeless smart classic and one of the greatest comedies ever made.   That is saying something considering that it is not even my favorite Monty Python movie.  

The Travelling Players (O Thiasos) (1975)

The beautiful country of Greece is known as a spectacular and exotic tourist location, and not everyone knows that it went through almost continuous war and political conflict between the years 1939 to 1952.    Of course, World War 2 was a major factor in this.   The great visual director Theodoros Angelopoulos in 1975 addressed this period of strife in his homeland by concentrating on a theatrical troupe traveling through Greece while the world was going crazy around them.  The movie he created was the epic motion picture, “The Travelling Players”.

A travelling theatrical troupe or players are touring their 19th century Greek classic play titled, “Golfo the Shepherdess”, and the movie opens with one of the many long, uninterrupted takes that Angelopoulos is renowned for.   The Troupe arrives in a Greek town and start walking down the street slowly while a car bellows election propaganda supporting the right wing general Papagos from the Greek legislative elections of 1952.   By the time the troupe complete their walk, they find themselves in the middle of the Nazi occupation of Greece sometime between the years 1941 – 1942.     Then, once they arrive, the Troupe leader, Agamemnon joins the military to fight the Italians, placing the period now in 1940.    In this initial set up to the movie, the more the troupe walked, the further they went back in time and, while very confusing for me initially, made more and more sense as the movie’s narrative expanded on the different time periods.    It is this complex time-sharing, slow-moving style that incorporates scenes that seamlessly transition from one period to the next, which worked to completely immerse me into the tone of the location and period depicted in the movie.

“The Travelling Players” is not your typical historical drama, and while its intersecting of time periods throughout its narrative is like Coppola’s “Godfather Part 2”, it’s methods and style are totally different.   Angelopoulos is one of cinema’s great visualists and his movie, at nearly 4 hours in length, is sparse in dialogue, preferring to choreograph long, elegant, encompassing shots that made me feel that I was experiencing what the characters were experiencing.  In addition, all his stunning shots are accompanied by the hypnotic music of the wonderful composer, Loukianos Kilaidonis.    Despite the movies’ long-running time, there are two occasions where Angelopoulos uses the breaking of the 4th wall as characters speak to the viewing audience directly, so as to give historical background information to the story.   I believe he wanted to waste as little screen time as possible in incorporating historical context to the movie, without the use of narration.   The style of the movie comes across as being very theatrical accompanied by visuals that are very cinematic.   The result is a pure original style that is breathtaking to behold.

The plot within itself is not static in any sense as the story, contains. Love, loyalty, betrayal, and tragedy.   These are themes that are in tune with the historical big picture of the Greek period being shown.    After taking its time to immerse its viewer in its location and characters, the movie dwells deeply into the way this all affected the lives of the people who lived through it.  Since a large part of the Greek history shown concerns a bloody civil war, Angelopoulos uses his characters to depict the betrayal and blood feuds that were prevalent in Greece at the time.   For example, Agamemnon is betrayed by his wife and her new lover (and new Troupe leader), while she in turn is betrayed by her children.    The theme of Nazi collaboration is also touched upon during the great famine that occurred in Greece during the occupation, showing this via the younger daughter who prostitutes herself for food.   Torture and rape are also depicted as part of the package that was life during the civil war.   In addition, foreign interference is also touched upon with the depiction of British and Americans forces who were worried that the communists would take over Greece.  There is a brilliant scene where the newly arrived American Forces meet up with the travelling troupe, who introduce them to Greek music and culture by way of a quick impromptu performance of their play, followed by a spontaneous burst of dancing.   

Visually, I was taken aback by this movie.  Other than at the film’s end, this is not a showcase of the sunny beach-laden Greek Islands.    Most of the film takes place in the mountains or rocky shores and during the autumn and winter seasons.   Yet it was clear to me as to how much Angelopoulos loves his country by the way his camera flows along the old buildings, rocky scenery and rugged but expansive land.  Flowing gently through the country with his strange but interesting characters, the movie is a visual feast.   Showing everything in the grayish tones of the colder seasons was a perfect complement to the themes of cruel conflict.  

It takes a special movie to reconstruct a period in our past with not only visual accuracy, but also a melancholy feeling.  Even though I never lived in Greece during the period shown, I felt I knew what it was like to live there through this fascinating time capsule of a film as it engulfed me in its aura.  That is the power of “The Travelling Players”, a timeless masterpiece that resonates with the power of a true artist.   

Jeanne Dielman, 23 Commerce Quay, 1080 Brussels (Jeanne Dielman, 23 quai du Commerce, 1080 Bruxelles (1975)

Chantal Akerman’s, “Jeanne Dielman, 23 Quai du Commerce, 1080 Bruxelles”, is considered by many as one of the greatest movies ever made.   When watching the movie, the worldwide acclaim weighed heavily on my mind.    By the end of the difficult 3 and half hours of viewing, I believe I understood what all the fuss was about.   Unfortunately, as hard as I tried, I did not find the film captivating or interesting enough to justify 3 and a half hours of my life.    So there, I can now be the brunt of the ridicule for many film snobs, just as I may have ridiculed other people for not truly appreciating highbrow movies that I love.    What goes around comes around, I guess.

Akerman’s film depicts three days in the life of one Jeanne Dielman (Delphine Seyrig), as she does typical routine chores, as well as working as a part-time prostitute who turns a trick once in each of those days.     She is a widow and has a 15-year-old son.   Due to her being a single parent with no family or social support, she turns to prostitution in order to make ends meet and has one client a day for this purpose.     The movie reflects on her and her life, which shows her to have serious OCD issues that eats at her psyche until she eventually goes over the edge at the end of the film.    

There are quite a lot of similarities between this movie and Polanski’s Repulsion.   In Akerman’s movie, however, there is no attempt at trying to hint at or explain why she is the way she is.  She is a serious, obsessive, compulsive, and clearly disturbed person.   It is quite amazing to see a movie about a person like this from the 70s as OCD was not a very well-known and accepted disorder at that time.    Akerman may have known a person like her title character in the movie and her portrayal of this condition is meticulous.     She herself was known to have suffered from depression, so I believe the cracked mind was an important theme for her.

In the movie, Jean Dielman does the same thing every day and mostly at the same time, except each day she either does it a little bit differently or we are given more detail about her actions.   I am not talking about anything very interesting, but rather mundane acts such as turning each light off like clockwork when leaving a room, polishing her sons’ shoes, and especially cooking a meal.     Yes, it is true that the precise way she goes about preparing what looks like quite appetizing meals foresaw the popularity of the reality cooking shows of today.  An interesting aspect of this are her actions as a prostitute.   On the first day, we see her client enter the bedroom and the door closes after she follows him inside.    Afterwords, she begins to finish the preparations of dinner for the arrival of her son.   The 2nd day, we still do not see what is happening in the bedroom, but we see her removing a blanket/sheet that she places over the bed for the act and her smoothing out of the bed so that it looks neat and unused.   On the last day, we see what is happening in the bedroom and this slow realization as to what she endures daily is a powerful setup to the movie’s conclusion.   

Another interesting viewpoint to Jeanne’s weak condition is when she needs to repair her son’s coat when she notices a button missing.  Instead of buying a bunch of buttons to replace all of them, she searches a number of stores anxiously looking for the exact same button to replace.     Here, as within the entire film, Akerman’s camera follows her relentlessly without any explanation or narration.   The whole movie is filmed like that, and I understand how many people may be impressed at a movie showing its audience the aspects of regular life that is never shown in a conventional film.   I still asked myself whether that was interesting enough to cover over three hours of viewing time.   

Jeanne’s son is one of the most annoying teenage characters I have ever seen.    He hardly every starts a conversation and when he does, it is about sex.    The fact that those conversations, slim as they are, occurred with his mother gives him a creepy perverted aura about him.   Most of the time, he does not even talk and, as Jeanne appears to not have any family or friends, he is the only real human companionship she has, further adding to her depressing, seemingly controlled life.   She behaves towards him more as if she is his servant or slave instead of as a mother.  Other than telling him not to read at the dinner table, she treats him like some master for whom she will polish his shoes, help him put his coat on, cook dinner for, set up the dinner table, as well as clearing the table at the end of the meal.  Love is lost within this cold family setting.     

If I was working for the Belgian tourist office, I would not want this film to be seen.  The Brussels I saw in this movie during the period Jeanne left her apartment to do errands, is gray, old and without any aesthetic beauty.    The buildings are mostly square unimaginative blocks and the people when they are seen outside seem to be all running away from any human contact.    The movie feels like an indictment on Belgium as a cold, heartless society.  

“Jean Dielman, 23, quai du commerce, 1080 Bruxelles”, is a three-and-a-half-hour film the takes its time showing the viewer regular mundane and boring acts of life that has as its protagonist a mentally disturbed woman who is controlled within herself, keeping all her emotions inside with an ending that shows the terrible consequences of this forced emotional reservation.    While I can understand the fascination with this difficult film, I still have a hard time getting over the fact of how boring the movie actually is.   

The Rocky Horror Picture Show (1975)

In 1980, as a first-year college student in Toronto, I attended my first screening of the mother of all cult films, “The Rocky Horror Picture Show”.   It was, as is the case with all the screenings of this movie in the early 80s, a midnight showing.    Caught a bit unaware, I was not able to hear any of the dialogue throughout the movie as water, rice and toilet paper were being thrown at me.    Almost the entire audience danced to the terrific “Time Warp”, and people were shouting what appeared to be smart funny comments at the screen.  In addition, about half the audience (the movie theater was packed) were dressed up as characters in the movie.   Adding to my pleasure was the fact that I was quite high at the time.  It was not until I watched the movie on DVD a couple of years later that I understood the plot of the movie.  I much prefer my movie theater experience to the home video one as it is the interactive experience inherent in all viewings of this film that makes the movie special.  

“The Rocky Horror Picture show”, is the baby of Richard O’Brien, who wrote it as a stage play while being bored as an unemployed actor in London.   The play was a huge, surprising hit on both sides of the Atlantic, which gave him the green light in converting it to a movie.    O’Brien decided to use not only the same original stage director (Jim Sharman) to direct the movie version, but also most of the original theater cast were retained for the film.    He wrote the movie as a campy musical homage to those old B grade sci-fi and horror films he loved as a kid.  Since this was in the peak period of the great glitter period of the British music scene, his play was full of the sexual ambiguity that marked the period.

 On its initial release, the movie bombed badly, while having had the good fortune of existing during the period of the midnight movie boom, which was widely popular with the young counterculture generation at the time.    In addition, the sexual freedom theme of the movie attracted the LGBT crowd who were big fans of the midnight movie scene.    O’Brien not only wrote the screenplay, but he also wrote all the musical pieces and had a major role in the film.    It was at one of those midnight screenings that had large amounts of people return for repeated viewings.  During these viewings, people started to react verbally to the movie’s characters, eventually developing an interactive script that was more or less used throughout North American screenings and even some European ones.   Shadow casts were developed, resulting in actual performances occurring alongside the screening.    Watching “The Rocky Horror Picture Show”, was an event and party where like-minded people came to celebrate.   

As far as the plot goes, the story follows how the young conservative engaged couple Brad (Barry Bostwick) and Janet (the always delightful Susan Sarandon) have their car breakdown next to a castle, that they enter in search of a telephone.  In the castle there are strange-looking people dancing and celebrating.   The hunchback, Igor-like Rif Raf (O’Brien himself), lets them inside.  Once in the celebration starts with the terrific song, “The Time Warp”, which was a major hit at the time due to the film’s revival.  The master of the castle is Frank-N-Furter (A terrifically campy Tim Curry), and his introduction with a black leather S & M outfit and net stockings is one of Hollywood’s great intros.   He is a transvestite and his intro song and dance, “Sweet Transvestite”, is the best part of the movie.  Also, based on his name, one can assume that he is also interested in creating life from the dead, except this time his creation is a hunky blond male, who also catches the interest of Janet.     During the overnight stay at the castle, Frank-N-Furter opens the sexual awareness of the young couple.    There is a very good reason as to why this movie was celebrated by the LGBT community.     

The direction and choreography of the movie are not very special, and most of the acting is purposefully campy and exaggerated.  As is the dialogue.   The only two actors who really pull it off are Curry, who is fantastic, and Sarandon, who did not know how to give a bad performance throughout her long career (of which this film was the beginning).    

 What is truly special about the movie, however, other than some of the music, is the art direction, costumes, and makeup.    Sharman and O’Brien filmed the movie in London, using old Hammer horror castle props for their location shoot, and the campiness of those semi-serious films comes out in this movie.  In addition, the costumes, hairstyles and makeup, which were a combination of Glitter rock fashion, classic horror and 50s sci-fi, were so extreme and watchable that, in addition to being used by the shadow cast at the viewings, were a major influence on the punk rock scene and look that would explode in England a year after this movie came out.     If we believe that a great movie can influence modern style, then credit needs to be given to Rocky Horror, for its great influence on the lives of those who grew up in the late 70s and early 80s.     Colored hair and zany hairdos would never have happened if not for this movie. I am certain that Johnny Lyndon and Sid Vicious were fans of this movie.

Musically, “The Rocky Horror Picture Show”, starts off with a bang as its best songs happen at the start and end after the introduction of Frank-N-Furter.     When just watching this film as a movie, I truly enjoyed the campy humor alongside great songs.    In the second half, however, the songs start to fizzle, seem repetitive and similar to a Broadway musical.  Still, “Science Fiction Movie”, “Time Warp”, and “Sweet Transvestite” are not only great songs but sung to some nice set pieces that are a lot of fun.   

While “The Rock Horror Picture Show” is not really that great of a cinematic experience on its own, as it is filmed pretty much as a stage play, it is meant to be appreciated in a theater at midnight as part of an interactive experience and watching it that way is great fun akin to going to an amazing party.    

Barry Lyndon (1975)

In the 18th Century, the world did not have photography to record how the world and life was.   In Europe, this was a period of social injustice and war.   It was up to the great painters and writers of the period to let future generations know how people lived and felt during this important European period.   Stanley Kubrick was not only a great photographer and director, but he was also a superb writer.  In his masterpiece, “Barry Lyndon”, Kubrick absorbed himself into 18th century Europe using the period writings of William Makepeace Thackeray and the stunning artwork of William Hogarth as his guiding light.   In doing so, he created not only one of the greatest windows into a long-gone world, but a stunning work of art in its own right.

The story concerns the life, rise to prominence and eventual downfall of a young ambitious man named Redmond Barry (Ryan O’Neal) who lived in the 18th century British Kingdom of Ireland.   He starts off his adult life as a naïve romantic fool, who quickly learns the harsh reality of a relatively lawless life in the British Kingdom of the period.  Forced to join the British Army while the seven Years’ War raged throughout Europe, he eventually, after being forced to join the Prussian army (an ally of Britain), and becoming a Prussian and then Irish spy, he escapes the military to England where he marries into Royalty and position.    All of this is done with quite a bit of deceit and dishonesty, with a little bit of cruelty added for good measure.   The movie is divided into two sections, with the first one following Barry from his Iris exile, various military adventures, his life as a gambling cheat, and until he meets and marries Lady Lyndon (Marisa Berenson in a thankless role), taking on her title and name.   It is the name of her late husband, who was an invalid and alive when Barry started courting Lady Lyndon.    The 2nd section of the film recalls Barry’s life as an aristocrat.   Of the two sections, it is the first one which has the bulk of the stories adventure, however the 2nd section in its detailed accounting of the empty 17th century aristocratic life is equally fascinating.    

“Barry Lyndon” is one of, if not the most beautiful looking movie I have ever seen.   The cinematography of John Alcott and Kubrick’s direction are exquisite.   Even without a story of depth and feeling, this movie is worth watching just for its images.   By studying the paintings of Hogarth, Kubrick was able to create a window into Hogarth’s world.   Considering that Hogarth drew various series of paintings that dealt with the same themes of the movie, (Life of a prostitute, life of a cheat and the disastrous results of an ill-considered marriage for money), making his movie with the same look as those paintings gives the movie a stunning epic allure.    There are so many gorgeous and lengthy wide-angle long shots that start with the close shot of a character and then slowly pull back to reveal the stunning spacious surroundings, ending in a still scene that is very much like one of those great 18th century paintings we pay to see in famous museums.   This is something that Kubrick played with in his previous film, “A Clockwork Orange”, but perfected it in an exquisite style that never fails to leave me in awe each time I watch the film.     It is well known that Kubrick filmed most of the interior scenes without any artificial lighting, using lit candles instead.   Even when he used film lighting, he did it in a way to replicate the way the candles reflect light.   This had the stunning effect of giving me the feeling that I was watching scenes that happened in the long dead past with a realistic, elegant beauty that once again reflected the same tone as Hogarth’s paintings.    When anyone wants to see an example of how cinema reflects and enhances the art of painting, I always point them to this great film.  

The movie, in its skewered view of pride and nobility, goes into quite a bit of depth on the art of dueling for atonement.  “Barry Lyndon” boasts three-gun duels and one duel of swords.   In fact, the movie opens with a quick, fast duel that results in the death of Barry’s father.     I was made to believe that Barry would have turned out differently if his father had been alive to raise him.     That is the only one of the pistol duels that is quick.  All the rest take their que from the Sergio Leone school of long-drawn-out ceremonies of sudden violence.   Accompanied by the slow, elegant classical music from the same era, these duels were not only striking to look at but very suspenseful as well.   

“Barry Lyndon” is a three-hour period work of visual splendor that is paced deliberately, slowly with an intent for the audience to feel and not just absorb the story.   Kubrick used a third-party narrator in the film, giving the movie the feel of a classic novel.   In almost all cases, this narration will tell the viewer what is about to happen to Barry before it occurs in the movie.   Then the movie slowly, with beautiful scenery, moves the characters to this known conclusion, allowing me as the viewer to truly absorb the emotional beauty of the movie as I waited for the events to reach their conclusion.    The duels are a great example of this.   The narrator foreseeing what is going to happen also allowed me to truly absorb the beauty of the long wide-angle shots so expertly paced to the classic film score.   

On first viewing, many people may be taken aback by the performance of O’Neal in the critical role of Barry.  After seeing the movie more than once, I concluded that he was perfect for the role.   O’Neal was more of a pretty boy in Hollywood and did not have a lot of charisma in his persona.  Nor did he have the depth in acting to portray charisma.   However, that is exactly what Barry is in the film.   He is a pretty, intelligent young man with little charisma and even less morals.   He understood that he needs to take advantage of circumstances when they appear and how to use his looks to his advantage, but in most cases, he just lets events happen to him.     Other than at the beginning of the film before he must go to the army and grow up quickly, O’Neal as Barry never has much emotion or feeling for anyone except his son and this lack of charisma helps very much to enforce this aspect about him.     Kubrick was never one to film heroic characters and always preferred to use flawed and even immoral people as the stars of his films.   Think Alex from “A Clockwork Orange”, or Jack from “The Shining”.   Barry is another one of those characters, and it is exactly O’Neal’s blank and thoughtless expressions that help to bring this out on the screen so perfectly.  

Stanley Kubrick was a lover of classical music, and this is the movie where he could place this music in its rightful place.   All the classical composers whose pieces he used in the movie lived during the same period that the movie takes place.   Whether a beautiful piece by Vivaldi, Bach, Paisiello, Mozart or Schubert, each music score fits the gorgeous visuals like a missing piece of a puzzle.   The action, scenery and music fuse into a magical window into the past.   

Stanley Kubrick’s, “Barry Lyndon”, is a three-hour masterpiece that uses an unlikeable main character as its focal point in depicting a long-gone way of life.   It is also a spectacular, spell binding, and visually exciting movie, making it one of my favorite movies of all time.    It is a must-see cinema for all lovers of great art.

Blazing Saddles (1974)

In the early days of cinema, the Marx Brothers thrived in surrealistic stories that were based on loading as many gags and one-liners as was humanly possible into their films.   When those jokes had impeccable timing, and great delivery (The brothers were the best at this), the gags and jokes hit their mark.    With “The Producers”, Mel Brooks worked from a glorious story to match his sometimes vulgar and inciteful humor.  In 1974, by using the premise of satirizing the clean wholesome façade of the classic Hollywood western, Brooks went the route of the Marx Brothers by concentrating on theme and non-stop set-ups, stealing some of Godard’s 4th wall idiocy in the process.    The resultant movie, “Blazing Saddles”, is so ridiculous and off the wall that it compares very favorably with some of the Marx Brothers’ best work.

What places this movie apart from those classic comedies, is its straightforward and in-your-face attack on racism.     Brooks took a timeworn and simple western plot of an evil railroad baron wanting to own and take control of a town that his incoming railroad will pass through that he borrowed right out of Leone’s, “Once Upon a time in the West”.  He then turns this plot upside down by making its hero a black man.   His understanding as to how this would affect the paranoid racist citizens of the wild west and expanding on that with no-holds-barred exaggerations is what makes the movie work.   The town’s citizens send a letter to the Governor asking him to send a new sheriff to protect them from the railroad villains.   Said villain has the corrupt Governor in his pocket, and they agree to send a black man about to be executed as the new Sheriff of the town (Rock Ridge), with the understanding that the townsfolk would never accept a black man as their savior.   

The beauty of the movie is the unapologetic way it depicts the western and racial stereotypes that existed throughout the history of the Hollywood Western.   Cleavon Little stars as the Black Sherrif Bart, and he is a delight.  Of all the movie characters, it is Bart who is the least lampooned and Little mostly plays him straight.    He is charismatic and full of an unearned form of confidence that could only survive in the world of cinema.  He is, of course, a bit flashy and extravagantly dressed (for the West), sporting his white hat with flair and pride.   He is probably the least crass person in the movie.   Brooks emphasizes the cartoonish depictions of all the characters throughout the film, and with Bart, it comes in his Bugs Bunny delivery of a letter bomb to the character Mango.    Other than that scene, Little mostly plays Bart straight. 

The rest of the cast are a different story, and they are played by many Brooks regulars.   Harvey Corman is delightful as the evil Hedley Lamarr, and the running joke of people consistently pronouncing his name wrong never fails to amuse.   It is his idea in making Bart the Sheriff, rightfully thinking that he would not be accepted by the ignorant town folks.  Corman goes over-the- top in his portrayal and embraces the evil in Lamarr while expanding on his utter stupidity.   In fact, all the white characters, except for Gene Wilder’s, are shown to be very stupid.    

Gene Wilder is once again marvelous here as Bart’s sidekick, Jim, who will tell you used to go by the name, Jim, which is in itself a joke, since he will, a bit later, say that he is known as “The Waco Kid” (Pun intended).   Wilders’ character type was portrayed in the past by the likes of Dean Martin and Kirk Douglas. A former fierce gunfighter turned alcoholic due to all the people who want to kill him.   For Jim, it was being challenged by a 6-year-old that finally breaks him.   As you can see throughout the movie, there are these added silly exaggerations that lampoon and satirize well-loved icons of western movies.  Wilders’ character is a bug-eyed Shane or Clint Eastwood on steroids.   He is so fast on the trigger that we never see him move (yes, I mean literally), as everything in this movie is exaggerated.  

There are many more off the wall character spin-offs, such as the delightful Madeline Kahn who is a hooker hired by Lamarr to seduce Bart out of town, but instead gets enamored by his physical endowment (another stereotype expanded on for laughs).   There is the football player Alex Karress portraying the fearsome killer Mango as a cross between Leatherface and Jerry Lewis.    He is such a bad ass that he knocks a horse out cold with one punch.   

At another point, Brooks works to insert reality into a typical western scene in order to show that scene’s actual outcome.  For example, how many western TV shows or movies show cowboys eating cooked beans at an evening campfire?   Quite a few, but this is the only movie where we find out what eating beans can do to your bowel movements in the famous and legendary campfire bean eating scene.    The old westerns either had the Native American Indians speak an untranslated foreign language or broken English.  Here Brooks uses the foreign language aspect and has them speak Yiddish.    Sure, maybe the Indians were one of the lost Jewish tribes.    When things like this happen, they caught me by surprise the first time I saw the movie, and then it became something I looked forward to seeing at all subsequent viewings.  Each time they also made me laugh out loud.    

During the few times I didn’t laugh while watching the movie, I was struck by the strong and effective way that the movie tackles racism, stereotypes, and political correctness.   The N word is used all the time, and usually in a mostly uncomfortable and vicious fashion.    In the end, when we laugh at how almost all the white people callously use it, we are laughing at the damnable stupidity that is racism.  This movie is one of the more effective condemnations of racism I have ever seen in a Hollywood movie that I thought was just meant to entertain.   One of the brightest, sharpest comedy minds of the 70s was a black man named Richard Pryor, and Pryor contributed with Brooks in writing the screenplay.  It was his insistence on the use of the N word consistently in the movie that leaves a mark on the viewer while making him laugh at the same time.   All the white people in the film are also characterized as ignorant and extremely idiotic.  This I believe was also done purposefully to further emphasizing racism as a terrible blight on American history.

To top everything off, Brooks ends his film with the most outrageous breaking of the 4th wall ever put on film.   Godard said that it was smart and meaningful to have his movie characters speak directly to the viewing audience.   When Brooks does the same thing at the end of his movie, I was already clearly aware that there was nothing real happening in the movie.    When the characters leave the movie’s period and story to enter a movie set in a Hollywood backstage, they are not only speaking to the viewer but carry with them all the set-ups, props and, of course, gags.    This had the strange effect of making me feel even more of a conspirator to the racist stereotypical behavior that I was laughing at while watching the movie.   It was a bit of an unnerving feeling for me, and I believe that was Brooks’ point.  

While it is not very visually arresting, “Blazing Saddles” has a marvelous cast who give good performances, with exquisite timing, and non-stop jokes that work about 80% of the time.    The fact that, at the same time as I was laughing out loud, I thought about the evils of racism within our society attests to its success in getting its message across.  For a comedy to succeed in doing both of those things is quite an achievement, making “Blazing Saddles” one of the greatest comedies of all time.  

Mirror (Zerkalo) (1975)

In 2011 after attending a showing of Terrence Malick’s, “The Tree of Life”, I was awe-struck at thinking that I had just watched something not only deeply personal, but very original.     As I finished viewing Andrei Tarkovsky’s 1975 film, “Mirror”, I understood that while Malick’s movie is still great, it was not as original as I initially thought. “Mirror” is one of the most unconventional movies that I have ever seen, working in essence as a flow within the memory and life of its main character.   A character that most people attribute to being Tarkovsky himself.  

“Mirror”, follows the life of one Alexei (Oleg Yankovsky plays the adult version), who is a man reflecting on his own life and Russian history.    The movie spans a pre-war period in the 30s, when Alexei was a young boy, a period during the war in the 40s when he was an adolescent and a period in the late 60s when he was a divorced adult with an adolescent son.    The movie moves freely between these time periods without linear or conventional logic to tie them together.    In addition, the movie’s cinematography uses elegant color, stark black and white photography, slow-motion dream sequences and historical black and white newsreel footage throughout the movie.   Tarkovsky blends these different visual styles throughout the different time frames in the movie.    Not all the 1930s scenes are filmed in Black and White as not all the more modern period scenes are filmed in color.  The blend is sporadic and seemingly without reason.     This also results in a spellbinding visual experience.

Tarkovsky’s use of the same actress to play both his mother and his ex-wife adds to the feeling I had of pure emotion while watching the movie.       The blend of characters played by the same person and through different time periods often happens throughout the film.   In addition, these same characters appear in the elegant dream-like sequences that include a view of the mother post-shower sequence that gives her a ghost-like appearance while a shower ceiling collapses, that is repeated within another dream-like scene that shows her levitating above a bed.  

The movie also makes use of the same actor to take on the role of Alexie as an adolescent during wartime and his son during the more modern sequences.    Initially, this free-flowing style combined with no direct artistic differentiation of the time periods resulted in my getting confused as to which period and sometimes character I am watching.   Eventually, the deep emotional images flowed easily, and I was able to follow not only specific characters but also their emotional depictions.   

The interspersal of the historical newsreel footage, while initially seeming out of place, eventually gave me a feeling of context for Alexei or Tarkovsky himself and the world in which he exists.    One of the more startling of these scenes is pictures of Russian soldiers wading through water and mud on their way to the front during World War II.  Facing almost certain death, their onward determined movements are enlightening.   Especially when placed within the context of this eclectic movie of memoir and feelings.   The footage of nuclear bomb explosions also serves as a context for the world in which Tarkovsky lives.   

I believe that Tarkovsky in making the movie, was trying hard to interpret his memories.   These are sometimes memories of actual events, or just feelings and even dreams.     Is there a correlation between the scenes filmed in color and those in Black and White?  I am sure there is, but it would take countless repeated viewings to decipher this.    Instead, these smooth changes of style felt like emotional surges of visual spender to me.    I was awe-struck and totally captivated by the sheer visuals shown in the movie.    

As for mirrors, there are plenty of them throughout the film and each time a character looks into one, the gaze is deep in thought.    In many cases, the mirror serves as a trigger to another thought or period.   If this is a movie about the memories of Tarkovsky then the mirror serves as its window.    The look into a mirror is the view into a memory and that is how I felt while watching this fascinating film.  

I also felt a lot of metaphysical energy in many scenes.   The fast motion depiction of vapor evaporating from a tabletop to the natural falling of rain, the blazing of a bonfire and nature’s natural reaction to a blowing wind.    I recalled windblown blades of grass from Malick’s film and here we are shown almost purposeful movements of golden blades of wheat made by a sudden wind burst.     All these are not only beautiful to behold but also gave me an emotional feeling of longing.   Tarkovsky seems to be telling me that our world and nature are triggers for our memories.  

Andrei Tarkovsky’s, “Mirror”, is one of the most original motion pictures I have ever seen.  It is a stunning depiction of one man’s memory that is awe-inspiring and heart-rendering without telling a linear story.   Like a painting by great artists or a symphony by one of the music giants. It is a movie of artistic beauty that is a treasure to behold.