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.

Nashville (1975)

With his 1970 film, “M*A*S*H”, Robert Altman created the ensemble cast movie style in which an ensemble cast replace lead characters in movies.   In 1975, he went one step further by using the same premise to portray an epic mosaic of interrelated characters five days before a political rally in Nashville, Tennessee.     Since Nashville is the country music capital of the world, music, or more specifically, the country music industry becomes an important aspect to the themes of the movie.  Themes that portray the dark sides of American culture and politics, such as greed, ambition, politics and most particularly, celebrity.

Taking place in Nashville, a few days before a large political rally of a radical and surprisingly successful third party candidate for the US Presidency, the plot includes the actions of 24 main characters, ranging from famous singers, up-and-coming stars, a chauffeur driver, a political publicist, aspiring singers both talented and not talented, a British documentary filmmaker, a celebrity lawyer, a celebrity manager who is married to a celebrity, an elderly man dreading the death of his sick wife, a psychopath and many more.    The movie begins in a recording studio where a major and established star played by Henry Gibson is recording a new song and ends at a large political rally that features a concert with the same singer.   In between, all the characters intermingle and react to each other, as they all end up at the rally in the movie’s powerful ending.   

Every single one of the 24 performances is terrific and special mention needs to be made to a few.  Gibson who, before this film, was a minor comedian, swings between narcissism, cruelty and sympathy without missing a beat.   His character at the outset seems selfish and vindictive, but he succeeds in creating a character arc that allowed me to feel empathy for what it is like living within the established music industry, which is shown to be cutthroat and insensitive.   There is also nothing humorous about his character, making his performance that much more surprising.   Another even more established comedienne is Lily Tomlin, and she is terrific in an equally somber, unhumorous role as the gospel singer who is not only the mother of two deaf children, but also the husband of the uninterested celebrity lawyer (Ned Beaty).   Tomlin shows terrific range in the movie and has two of the most poignant scenes in the film.  One where she listens to a swimming pool story told in sign language by her son and another when she sits transfixed and sad in an audience watching the handsome and promiscuous up-and-coming folk singer (Keith Carradine) sing a song that she thinks is directed only at her (which it is not).   The first scene is one of the most heartfelt in the movie and the latter one of the saddest.    Tomlin’s character, while short on dialogue, is rich in expression, and she knocks it out of the park.    Also of note is the standout performance of Ronee Blakley as the most successful of the famous singers who has just recovered from a tragic accident and is neurotic.    I thought it was very clever for Altman and his screenwriters to make the most famous and successful character also the least stable.  There are many other well-thought-out characters that make this one of the most colorful of movies.   

Robert Altman was the most European of all the American directors who came of the new Hollywood from the 70s, and his movies remind me a lot of the French new wave.   This movie, especially, as, “Nashville”, is a character-driven rather than plot-driven film that uses its camera to follow not one particular person during each scene, but a group of characters that exist seemingly to create the reality that is the country music capital of the world.   This is the movie that finally took Altman’s famous use of overlapping dialogue to its highest level.   With so many different characters to be interested in, and only 2.5 hours to show, the vast depth of dialogue is essential here, and Altman hits his stride with his ability to allow his camera to follow the important pieces of what is being said.   This allowed me to be invested in each of the 24 main characters, which is an amazing feat.  The movie owes a great debt to the musicals of Jacques Demy with the way the camera follows a character and then abruptly takes its aim at another one going in a different direction.    The movie also has the heart of Truffaut with its ability to make me care about so many characters.    Truffaut’s, “Day for Night”, while much kinder than this film, immediately comes to mind while watching this movie.   There, as well as here, there were numerous characters within one framework who never behaved the best, while retaining their humanity, making me care about each of them or at least empathize with each of them.   

Altman has said that at least one hour of the movie’s 2.5 hour running time is made up of musical performances.   He also asked each of his singing actors to write and then perform their own original pieces.  It is hard for me to give an honest critical opinion on the music, since country and Western is probably one of the two musical styles that I dislike the most.   If there is only one song within the movie that truly stands out, that would be Keith Carradine’s “I’m Easy”, which won him a surprising Academy Award for best song.  That was something that the academy finally got right in that category.   The reason for this is that I believe a best song movie award should always be a song that helps to promote the narrative of the movie, which is exactly what Carradine’s song does.   While performing it he is singing about the unfaithful way that he conquers women, while in the audience there are four separate women that he took to his bed during the movie, and each one of them believes that he is singing to them.  Alongside the almost stargazing looks of those women while he sings, the words take on a whole different meaning.  The scene would be funny if it was not so sad.  

The first half of the movie, for me, was an interesting and enjoyable introduction to all its moving parts, but it is in the last hour that the movie really takes off.   Once I found myself surprisingly taken in by so many different characters, seeing them set themselves up for the epic ending was a pleasure to watch.    The movie ends with a prophetic and harsh societal criticism that I will not ruin for those few who have not watched the movie.  However, I will say that the ending includes one character of a married lady trying to escape her husband while pleading for someone to allow her to sing a song she had written, who finally gets to perform the song.  This scene is so powerful that it reminded me of Kubrick’s poignant ending to, “Paths of Glory” when the poor French girl sings a song of love that brings tears to a crowd of leering soldiers.  In, “Nashville”, this closing song evokes a similar feeling as it transfixes the world and stops a feeling of tragedy, if only for the moment that the song is in the air.   

As a vehicle for powerful ensemble acting, Altman’s, “Nashville” is second to none.   It is, however, even greater than that commendable feat.   This is a movie about American culture and it’s not a pretty sight.   Almost all the characters in the film use somebody else to that person’s detriment and for their own benefit.   They bring about behaviors that are driven by the need to be heard, whether through politics or entertainment.   Why do so many Americans want to be famous, and why are they seeking out such callous fake love?   That is the question asked by Altman in his movie.  This is a great director at his peak and “Nashville” is not only his masterpiece but one of the greatest movies ever made.  

Fox and his Friends (Freedom’s Law of the Jungle) (Faustrecht der Freiheit) (1975)

LGBT Cinema are movies that either deal with LGBT topics or are concerned with the lives of people inside the LGBT community.   Rainer Werner Fassbinder’s, “Fox and his Friends”, is the latter of those two types of movies.    It is also one of the best of its kind.     Dealing with a melodramatic story of love and betrayal, the movie works more as a conflict between the class cultures in Germany than anything else.    By the time the movie ends, I was so caught up in the story, that the fact that it is set entirely within the German LGBT community in the 1970s, became an almost unnoticeable aspect of the film.    

“Fox and his Friends” is a tragedy that concerns the rise and fall of one Franz Bieberkopf (Fassbinder himself who proves that he was no slouch when it came to acting).   Franz works in a carnival under the synonym of, “Fox the talking head”, and the movie opens as the creator of this carnival act, who is also Franz’s lover, is arrested for tax evasion, leaving France unemployed.    France is a lottery addict who needs to consistently purchase lottery tickets each week and when his last bit of cash is stolen, he reverts to prostitution so that he can buy the current week’s ticket.    Due to time constraints, he still needs to steal money to buy his ticket and does that at a local florist.      Franz is introduced as Fox by his well to do trick Max (Karlheinz Bohm).     It turns out that the lottery ticket he purchased was the winning ticket with a 600,000 German Mark prize.      One of Max’s friends is Eugen (Peter Chatel) who, while initially showing his disgust at Franz’s lower-class sensibilities, changes his attitude once he realizes that France won the lottery.     By seducing France, Eugen uses deceit and dishonesty, and works to psychologically destroy Franz’s self-esteem, taking advantage of his kindness in attempting to slyly steal all his newfound wealth.  

Once France and Eugen are a couple, Eugen will slowly and with cold intent work to first make France feel like he is entering an equal world within Eugen’s own world of money and manners, while at the same time making him feel inept at every turn.   This emotional manipulation was very clear to me from the beginning, which made it equally sad to watch how Franz did not realize what was happening before it was too late.    Interestingly, when they initially meet, Franz is shown as a confident free soul, as if he is in control of the situation.  His slow sad transformation into a victim was utterly believable.   The fact that I saw it coming a mile away did not ruin the authenticity, as Franz’s lack of intelligence was never in question.   Within this relationship, Fassbinder gives an insightful critique of German society that differentiates people through class and money.   Love, which is the strongest of emotions, gets purchased here for money.    Franz has no qualms about prostituting himself when he is poor, which is a characteristic of his that Eugen takes full advantage of.  Franz is now more than willing to use his money to attain what he once thought was an unattainable love and lifestyle, while at the same time, it is Eugen who becomes the prostitute.   Love, social standing and money have never been more cynically interwoven than how they are portrayed in this movie.

It is quite interesting that, as a very liberal and freely showing LGBT film, “Fox and his friends”, is in a way a little conservative with its view on the German LGBT community in the early 70s, all the while retaining a universal story of love and betrayal.    There are depictions of bathroom sex, bath houses, and promiscuity, yet the story is so beautifully laid out and expressed, that the background of where it takes place becomes less significant.    

Similar to many of Fassbinder’s movies, “Fox and his Friends” revolves most of its drama within closed interiors that feel almost prison-like to its characters.    When Franz purchases a fancy apartment, he is made to feel immediately like an uninvited guest, through the personality of Eugen, who controls not only the living schedule of the flat, but also its complete design.   It would be made quite clear to Franz that his lower-class sensibilities would not allow him to make decisions in his new life.   He becomes a prisoner in the short-term luxury created by his sudden and unexpected wealth.   I remember being struck by stories of suddenly successful athletes who become extremely wealthy and just as quickly lose their wealth to others.   “Fox and his Friends” is a great example of this exact repeated social phenomenon.  

Other than Franz’s poor alcoholic sister and some boring spouses, who are married for money, all the characters in the movie belong to the LGBT community, making “Fox and his Friends” not only a terrific melodrama, but also a great example that, no matter who you are, we as human beings are pretty much all the same.      Not only is that a great message, but the movie it also comes from is an excellent slice of life from post-war Germany.  

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.  

Chinatown (1974)

The Neo-Noir genre is a modernized or colorized revival of the classic film noir.    From 1960 onward, any movie that contained the Noir themes of crime/psychological thrillers and was made in color would be Neo-Noir.  One of the greatest of these films, and one that can proudly be placed on top of the Noir pedestal with the best of the classic films, is Roman Polanski’s, “Chinatown”.   Polanski truly loved classic films and created an immediate classic with this hard-nosed and gritty movie.  

The movie takes place in the 1930s Los Angeles, and every scene in Chinatown is shown from the perspective of its private eye hero, Jake Gittes (Jack Nickolson in one of his most celebrated roles).   Nickolson’s Gittes is more Bogart than Marlow, with his taste for flashy clothing and swanky cars.    He is a successful private detective who specializes in catching the infidelity of the spouses of his clients.   As the movie opens, he is relaying one such affair to a stupefied husband.     A woman claiming to be rich, Evelyn Mulwray, hires him to follow her husband Hollis, who is the City’s chief Water Engineer.    It turns out that the lady who hired him is not the real Mrs. Mulwray, as the real one, is initially angry at Gittes for following her husband and then ultimately re-hires him to find out why said husband ends up drowning.    The real Evelyn Mulwray is played by the stunning Faye Dunaway and her sexy, cunning charm sucks Jake into her family’s dark dirty secret.    Jake, for his part, is most annoyed at being used by the people who sent him the fake Mrs. Mulwray, in the first place and throughout the film, is wary about trusting anyone, especially Dunaway’s femme fetal.     The movie weaves its way within a thick, complex plot concerning getting water through to the city.  Without water, Los Angeles would never become what it is today.  Controlling the water means controlling the city’s future, and there are people who want that power and are led by Mulwray’s Father Noah Cross, who is superbly portrayed as old, rich and evil by the great director John Huston.   

Gittes, whose perspective carries the entire film, is sharp, arrogant, and untrusting. As is the case with many Noir heroes, he is an ex-cop who left the force because something bad happened to him on the job. That history took place in the city’s Chinatown, but that is the only thing that links the story to the movie’s title. Nickolson brings a neurotic charm to Gittes. He likes to crack dirty jokes, speaks in a polite, fastidious way, and mostly does not look for violence. When violence finds him, he stands up to it with unflinching bravado, and to the films’ credit, this does not always work to his advantage. At one point in the movie, a small nasty thug played by Polanski himself slices his nose with a knife. This results in Nickolson having to go through almost a third of the movie with his nose sporting a large cumbersome bandage. Like all Film Noir heroes, his Gittes do not lack for smart comebacks and sardonic responses. One superb example is when Evelyn Mulewray tells Gittes that her husband seems to think he is an innocent man and Nickolson, as Gittes, retorts that he has been accused of many things but never that. There are numerous smart, cynical lines like that throughout the movie, and it is a credit to Nickolson’s performance that they all come out realistic and appropriate to the character. Nickolson almost reinvents the Noir private detective in this role. Business is good, and he looks successful while retaining his sad appearance of resignation , which made me aware that he would be much happier if he was still a cop.

As Evelyn Mulwray, Dunnaway is perfect.   She shows a breakable façade of bravado that seems to always be on the brink of disappearing.   For example, she starts her introduction to Gittes by coldly threatening him with legal action, yet immediately switches to asking him for help the next day.   Her family has a dirty secret that is eating her up from the inside and the scene when it is revealed is striking with its violence and revelation.   As a result, her final breakdown is utterly believable.    

As Noah Cross, John Huston creates one of cinema’s great villains.  He is a rich man who does not have even an iota of conscience or empathy for others, as all his actions are made for his own sole interests.     When confronted with one of his more heinous actions, he states that he believes that most people in the right circumstances are capable of doing anything, no matter how bad.  When asked what he wants that he does not already have, his response is that he wants the future, or more specifically to have power over countless people.     Huston delivers these lines with steadfast authority and unwavering belief in what he is saying.   His deep drawl made my skin crawl.        

Polanski is right at home in this story of deceit and corruption. He films his scenes in a tight, tense, resolute fashion that allowed me never to get lost in the complex tale. His bright light and dark-colored shots slide beautifully alongside Jerry Goldsmith’s jazzy score that features a haunting trumpet solo throughout. It is one of those movie scores that will forever define the movie it is associated with.

One of the improvements Neo-Noir has to film Noir is the freedom the screenwriter has on how to end their stories.    A typical hero wins, the villain loses ending is not required, and “Chinatown” has a powerhouse ending that is one of the more powerful endings that I have ever seen.     This is a Noir that concerns itself in American history and is viewed through the unfiltered eyes of a European who, through his own personal pain, has no use for forced endings.     It is a grim and fitting ending to a story of power, greed and corruption.  

Polanski and his brilliant screenwriter Robert Towne, with their incisive, witty film, have created, with Chinatown, alongside with Huston’s own, “Maltese Falcon”, one if the two greatest Noir films ever made.  It is a thrilling viewing experience that never ceases to impress, no matter how many times I watch it.  

Dersu Uzala (1975)

The great Japanese director, Akira Kurosawa, only made one movie outside of Japan.   That movie was the Russian-Soviet and Japanese co-produced cinematic translation of Vladimir Arsenyev’s beloved memoir, “Dersu Uzala”, named after the native trapper who aided Arsenyev in his countless exploratory trips into the Siberian wilderness of the Russian Far East.   Kurosawa’s film adaption concentrates on the unbreakable friendship that was built between Arsenyev and his trapper friend Dersu.     In doing so, he created one of cinema’s great testament to human bonding and friendship.  

Set at the beginning of the 20th century, Arsenyev (Yury Solomin), is a captain in the Russian army, sent to lead a troop of soldiers to the Shkotovo region of Siberia on a mission to map out the region for eventual settlement.   The region is a hard, wild, and unforgiving area that is alien to the soldiers.   One night, a Goldi (native people of the region) trapper arrives at their camp sites, seeking some food and refuge.   His name is Dersu Uzala (Maxim Munzuk in a powerhouse performance).  Dersu immediately impresses Arsenyev with his wilderness skills and agrees to Arsenyev’s offer to work as their guide during the mission.    The movie is divided into two sperate sections, with the first section dealing with this first initial expedition led by Arsenyev.   During the trip, Dersu will be critical in protecting the group, and on one occasion save Arsenyev’s life.    Arsenyev and Dersu will also build a bond of respect and friendship that grows into brotherly love.    

The 2nd section of the movie moves forward five years where, during an additional expedition led by Arsenyev, the group meets Dersu again, who once more agrees to work as their guide.    In this second section we learn about bandits who roam the area and the local militia who hunt them down.    Dersu will once again save Arsenyev’s life in this section.  The pivotal 2nd section also revolves around Dersu slowly going blind, and Arsenyev’s attempt to give him refuge at his home in the city.    

There are two prevalent themes in the movie.  The first being the theme of humanity’s need for humanity and the stirring and strong friendship that is built between Arsenyev and Dersu.   Two people from two different and polar opposite worlds.    The aspect of Dersu that strikes Arsenyev the hardest, is the latter’s concern and deep empathy not only for the nature that makes up his world but to all people who wonder about it.      When the group finds a deserted hut, Dersu makes sure to fix its roof before they depart, so that others wondering in the wilderness can make use of the hut to save themselves from the elements.  Arsenyev was impressed as to how this man could care about people that he not only never met but would never meet.  

 Dersu’s love of the mountain wilderness that he calls home is what allows him to fully respect its beauty as well as its dangers.   He knows that the cold and wind are dangerous and can end life very quickly.  My favorite part of the movie is when Arsenyev and Dersu find themselves lost and alone on a frozen lake whose night brings wind and deadly cold.    Dersu commands them both to build an artificial shelter and the scene of their hectic and wild gathering of bushes that is used to build the shelter had me transfixed to the screen, never realizing what the result would be until it happened.    This was also the pivotal occurrence that cemented the gratitude built within the respect and love that Arsenyev now has for his guide.

The 2nd theme deals with the clashing of cultures and the ability of one culture to adapt to the other.   In the wilderness, Arsenyev needs Dersu to survive, and he can only adapt through the help of his new friend.   During the closing section of the film’s second part, Dersu needs help to adapt and survive in the city, but Arsenyev is clueless about how to help him.     He tries to instill a sense of family in the older man through his own family.   Unfortunately for a man who lived most of his life alone and in the wild, this sense of family is not only alien to him, but also impotent in its ability to help Dersu adapt to western civilization.    The movie gives a very clear and strong message as to the major differences between eastern or native cultures and the so-called western civilized cultures.    Surviving the wilderness required knowledge and the ability to be led by a leader.   Learning to survive within urban societies requires a change in mentality that is sometimes impossible to obtain from someone who has lived their whole lives in the wilderness.    Think the timeless tales of Tarzan or Pocahontas as an example of this.    

The cast of “Dersu Uzala” boasts good performances all around, but a special mention must be made to the performance of Maxim Munzuk as Dersu.    Firstly, as an ethnic Turkish-Russian, Munzuk had the look.  In addition to the look his range of emotions and surprising physicality makes his Dersu an unforgettable character.   He speaks in a broken native dialect when speaking in Russian, making his clipped speech short and to the point.   When Dersu speaks, it is never for no reason.      Munzuk relays the fear, sadness and happiness invoked by this fascinating true-life character, honest and believable throughout.  His small stature belies his physical and emotional stamina and Munzuk, with this performance, had me yearning to be his friend.   It is a performance that transcends the sometimes melancholy nature of the story.  

“Dersu Uzala” is a movie that boasts many beautiful and spectacular scenes.      For example, the two main character’s walks along a frozen lake against white cloudy skies and descending red sunsets are breathtaking.   Kurosawa filmed the movie on location at the same region that the movie is set in. The movie encompasses’ numerous wide shots of an unwelcoming wilderness that are stunning to behold.  

Akira Kurosawa was one of cinema’s true masters, and it’s a real pleasure seeing him take full control of such a non-Japanese story.   He succeeds in beautifully conveying a true life adventure of human companionship with historical significance, making “Dersu Uzala”, an extraordinary film.   

Bring me the Head of Alfredo Garcia (1974)

Sam Peckinpah claims that of all his films, the only one that he truly felt was the movie he intended to make was, “Bring me the head of Alfredo Garcia”.    That is quite a statement from a man who created genre-setting controversial films such as, “The Wild Bunch”, and “Straw Dogs”.   The movie he is most proud of is the same film that was almost universally derided by both the audience and film critics when it premiered.  That may have to do with the movie being a nihilistic and hard-to-stomach depiction of humanity at its lowest and dirtiest.   However, when looked at closely, there seems to be something akin to being autobiographical within the character Benny, and Peckinpah himself.    

 

The movie opens somewhere in Mexico, along a beautiful peaceful river where a young pregnant girl is relaxing beside the water, until her father’s henchmen take her away as she has been summoned by her cartel boss, father. He wants to know who got her pregnant, and after a bit of light torture, is told that the guilty party is Alfredo Garcia, for whom, it seemed, was a trusted and loved employee of said father. He goes about and sets a $1,000,000 reward for the person or persons who bring to him Garcia’s bodyless head. Hence, the film’s title. Some high-class hired killers sweep through Mexico looking for Garcia. Their search brings them to a small rough village bar, and it’s resident Vietnam War vet piano player, Bennie. Bennie, you see once knew Alfredo Garcia, through their mutual love interest, call-girl Elita. By the 2nd part of the film, Bennie ends up riding in a raw beat-up car with the rotting fly-infested head of Garcia lying on the passenger seat. How the head got there is original to some and disappointing to others. He, on the other hand, is hell-bent on bringing the head to the Cartel, even though he never really realizes the extent of the ransom he will receive. Along the way, many people are killed in Peckinpah’s famous slow-motion style.

The movie boasts an excellent and unconventional cast.    Robert Webber and Gig Young are cast as two brutal hired killers.   While Webber had previously acted as a killer or soldier, he never had such a dark persona before in any of his previous films.   Young, previously to this role, mostly played mild-mannered, gentle characters.  Here they use their against-type personalities to invest an almost loving couple feel to their roles.  Their characters are another embarrassing example of Hollywood depicting gay people as deranged killers.   While their gay relationship with each other is never really spelled out, it is hinted at in a not to subtle way.  Especially in the scene with a salon hooker comes on to Webber’s character, resulting in her getting hit hard by him in his response of disgust.      The quirkiness of this casting, however, works quite well, making them not only believable but fascinating within the context of the story.  

 The role of the love interest, call-girl Elita was cast by the famous Mexican actress Isela Vega.   While unknown to American audiences, Vega was an established award-winning star in Mexico.  Her performance here is superb, as her Elita is one of those sad losers of life who is just looking for a way out of her misery.   Even if that means hatching on to Bennie and his obsession with bringing the rotting head of Garcia to the Cartel boss.    Her sad, poignant portrayal is spot on.   She is also part of another one of Peckinpah’s controversial rape scenes, where the person being raped seems to be enjoying herself.   I believe Peckinpah added the rape scene, which has no relevance to the film’s story, as a way of telling everyone what he meant by the controversial rape scene found in his hit movie, “Straw Dogs”.    

For the role of Bennie, Peckinpah cast the great character actor Warren Oats.    As Bennie, Oats is an alcoholic, unclean artist (he plays the piano).   He is always drinking, rarely bathes and wears the same sunglasses that Peckinpah himself loved to wear.   His depiction of him looks very similar to Peckinpah himself.    When Peckinpah boasts that this is his only real personal film, I believe he was referring to the autobiographical depiction of the movie’s main character.   Peckinpah succeeded in getting one of his best performances from Oats.   Bennie is constantly battling with himself and, as a war vet, is no stranger to violence and danger.    He is also a man hungry for love and his feelings for Elita go beyond the physical.   Oats moves through these emotions superbly, making his Bennie somewhat likable while at the same time disgusting.    I also felt that Bennie’s obsession with taking the severed head, mirrors in some way Peckinpah’s obsession in making this film without any major studio support. 

This is a Peckinpah movie and, as is the case with many of his films, it is full of bloody violence.  Many people are killed along the way of Bennie’s macabre journey with a severed rotting head.    The violence is once again shown in Peckinpah’s slow motion style through various perspectives.   The pain of the deaths is made real by the slow-motion depictions.     This is not a movie for the fainthearted.   

Visually, the movie has some remarkable wide shots of the Mexican landscape while keeping the colors shaded to maximize the gritty dark mood of the entire film.   This visual style works to enhance the feeling of isolation and abandonment felt by Bennie throughout the movie.  “Bring me the Head of Alfredo Garcia” is not a conventional movie in any sense.  It is an offbeat film that features a weird and repugnant story line.    That is also one of the reasons that it is a fascinating and interesting watch.