Y Tu Mama Tambien is a beautiful film, and honestly one that I am still puzzling over. In order to facilitate that puzzling I'm going to give away the surprise ending, and its enough of a surprise ending that one shouldn't continue reading unless you've seen the movie (which you should do... unless you are against sex).



I am eager to read this film as a "what would you do if you knew you were going to die" story, which could lead me to a lot of nice places. I am particularly interested in what draws the men and woman of this story together (speaking sexually of course), and I find it quite nice that the woman finds having sex with two young men to be more "real" then spending the time with her husband. Whether or not the film is, in total, an existentialist story, its answer to the existentialist dilemma is a rather interesting one.

I say that, because the film begs the question, what exactly is more "real," about these two boys than her husband. Though the director is obviously signaling this at certain points (she is going to tell her husband she is dying, he interrupts her and tells her he cheated on her), ignoring those obvious "he's a bastard" markers (which are always rather shallow, no one can be as big a bastard in real life as men in film have to be), the film wants to signify less blatantly that the careless sexual relationship has something of the religious in it, that cannot be properly encompassed by a socialized relationship.

Though I mean no disrespect to the religious people who are reading my blog, the concept of an "afterlife," typically considered, somewhat cheapens the idea of life in general. The woman in the film, and thus the film in general since the story is completely sympathetic to her, aims to experience life as bodily as possible, and thus as physically as possible. She attempts to experience beauty (sex with rather attractive young men) in the context of its constant erasure (death).

In this reading the message would be wholly pagan, and at the same time tragic (in the sense of Greek tragedy), because life is constantly being measured by the end annulment of its value.

In the Greek tragedy though there is always the prospect of history remembering you, and really, the truest tragedy is the memory of a person's disappearance to time. The boys do not learn any lessons from the woman, and the hedonism of the two weeks with all the accompanying "magical realism" is a matter for shame between the two of them. The only thing that remains of the woman is a mystery about what she was trying to say, like a ghost signaling without being heard.

I believe there might be a political message to the film as well, though I don't know what it is.

There is a lot in Eros + Massacre that I think is ideal cinema, though it does not seem to be able to decide whether it is a slow art house movie, a crazy surreal art house movie, or soft core porn, I think that's absolutely charming. Perhaps I should explain the "plot."

The movie is centered on the the life story of an actual Japanese anarchist that lived around the turn of the century (19th to 20th). It is intercut with the "story" of 2 college age kids in late 60's Japan. The anarchist talks a lot about annoying social theory, which allows him to get away with having a wife and two girlfriends and telling them that everyone is "free." He also is dependent on one of the girlfriends for money, but they're all radical feminist/anarchists, so they only kinda mind. In the end though, he decides to run off with the girlfriend who doesn't pay for his living, the other girlfriend finds them, and then there's a long scene where he gets killed or not killed by different women several times. Earlier in the movie you see him getting assassinated by government goons, which is how the guy (and his girlfriend) died in real life.

This is cross-cut with a guy and a girl acting crazy. The 60's in Japan were generally a crazy time, and universities were always getting attacked by riot squads with gas bombs (my Japanese teacher was in the middle of one of these), and people kept on joining radical organization, and so on and so forth. These kids are caricatures of Japanese students at the time, the girl seems to prostitute herself from time to time (it was a general policy in Japanese film studios at this time to never make a movie without a lot of nudity in it), and the guy is always around her, even while she's having sex with other men, the other men don't seem to mind though. Most of the time though, the two of them are running and screaming, and discussing the life of this anarchist, and various things that sound like social theory but probably aren't.

So, if I explained this film well enough (which I probably didn't), you'll notice that its a rather surrealistic celebration of anarchy, included with lots of boring discussions about anarchy. A somewhat appropriate film for the time when the Japanese New Wave was interacting with pink films (my favorite other example of this is Branded to Kill), not to mention a wonderful title.

But was sex and nonsense a recipe for success? Quite simply, the film disrupts our understanding of how a "story" works. The plot is really centered around two individuals discussing how a real life story "should" have happened, and because of cinema it did happen, in a strange acted way. The death of all these anarchists happened half a dozen times, but they never actually happened in the movie. All of the characters can become disconnected from time, and all the characters can freely disconnect themselves from common social mechanisms. The characters are in themselves just "ideas," trying to present a vision of freedom in a "free" space (cinema). The freedom they are desiring is largely a sexual one, but in the widest possible sense, in the surrealist sense where desire is a logic that is above the logic of perception (think Dali). The only way they can do that is by living in the world of film, where secondary logical patterns are quite often substitutable for primary logical patterns.

Of course the 60's showed us that film and real life aren't necessarily that far apart.

I plan on writing a post this weekend about my secret affection for soft core porn, look forward to it.

While I will admit on the whole, that I enjoyed the playfulness of A Zed & Two Noughts, I object to Peter Greenaway's work on the whole (or the two films of his I've seen). I'll describe my some reasonable and some unreason reasons for my mixed feelings about this film, and let the reader decide.

The first thing that really got me against Peter Greenaway, was that I thought that The Pillow Book, was essentially about how Greenaway wanted to have sex with a Japanese woman, but I'll leave that for another review. The second thing I dislike about Greenaway is the fact that he is one of the favorite directors of Res magazine. I met their founder once, and have held a high distaste for the magazine ever since, and everything that constitutes "digital culture," (including blogs). The third reason is that I find a fixation on "kinky sex" rather annoying, and Greenaway doesn't seem to make movies on anything else.

On the other hand I find obsessions with death, and strange music rather nice.

The plot revolves around two twins, who work at a zoo studying the decomposition of animals. They are both in love with a woman who loses both of her legs in (different) accidents, the first one involving a swan. There is a woman who works at the zoo, that is particularly mean and has a "thing" for animals. In the end (I'll give it away) the twins discover they used to be attached, decide to sow themselves back together, commit suicide, and record themselves decompose on a time lapse film. All the characters particularly liked the song "The Teddybear's picnic."

There were some other little bits of the story, but I think you can get the point.

What I particularly like about the story is the concept of scientifically studying something with absolutely no scientific meaning (studying the decomposition of flesh as a way to know the difference between life and death). The main characters are concerned with something that I think most people should be concerned about - the abstractness of death. Also, the main characters were concerned with the subject in the way that one should be concerned with such a subject - abstractly. In that way "The Teddy Bear's picnic," was really the perfect song for this film.

But the amputee sex and bestiality was all a bit silly.

Three to a Match is a delightful pre-code comedy that, in my humble opinion, is one of the most damning critiques of sexual morality that I have ever seen.

I am probably exaggerating, but I am comfortable making such a bold statement, because I generally don't think to highly of "critiques of sexual morality." Such films fall largely into two groups - the attempts of filmmakers who wish they had lived through the sixties to use the "sexual revolution" to justify the production of films bordering on pornography, and the attempt by filmmakers who read to much 70s structuralist theory to break down the scopophilic desire inherent in the filmic medium to free women from the horrible fate of being desired by men (used for masturbation of a different sort). This film does something wholly different, it defends sexual morality as the best way to lead to a boring life, and gives a rather beautiful portrayal of feminine desire leading to death.

The plot goes as so: Three girls graduate from middle school, one is really rich and goes to an expensive prep school, one is really smart and goes to a training school for secretary work, and one is really popular with boys, and in the course of time goes to a correctional institution. They meet up later, by accident, and the rich girl has married a rich man and is taking care of a small child, the smart girl has been doing secretarial work, and the girl from the correctional institution is now reformed. But then everything takes a turn. The rich girl is board with her life, and her always nice and accommodating (though overworked and effeminate) husband allows her to go on a trip to Europe alone with their kid. While on the trip she sleeps with a young good looking, masculine guy, and from then on she seems to do nothing besides drink and have sex. The other two girls find her one day, and discover the kid horribly neglected, they tell the father, who comes and takes the kid away, and invites the two girls to move in with him, one as the kids nanny (the smart girl) and one as his wife (the correctional institute girl). The rich girl dies.

About 90 percent of all movies that contain some reference to female sexuality, female sexuality is a commodity. It is something a man has to "get." Up until the 1950's female sexuality was obtained through marriage, after the 1950's largely through charm. Even today, if you read any of those books like Men are From Mars, Women are from Venus, you'll find that the concept that women have sexual desire is somewhat controversial. Though now it is termed somewhat differently then the days when we lived with the delusion that men desire women, and women desire marriage. Anything that tries to convince you that female desire is fundamentally different from male desire is essentially saying when you get down to it that men desire women, and women desire marriage.

This idea that "men desire women, and women desire marriage," goes out of fashion every now and then, and is replaced by another fiction, that female desire and male desire are almost the same except that female sexuality is much stronger. This is by and large the position taken by most sex comedies made in the 20s (Clara Bow) and early 30s (all pre-code sex comdies), until it was more or less explicitly banned by the production code and never really came back in the United States (it is something of a cliché in British comedies).

While I would never argue that this second fiction is "right," I would quite definitely argue that it is the more progressive view of sexuality, as can be clearly seen in this film (or most any Clara Bow film). While the film ostensibly punishes her "wild sexuality," it treats both her and her friend's sexuality rather lovingly. The scene where the rich girl and school dorm mates are reading romance novels together is positively lovely, and the scenes of the girls in the correctional institution are similarly fond of its subjects. You cannot help but identify with the girls in every one of their interactions with men, and of course, the one who was boy-crazy in the beginning ends up with the rich guy in the end.

Of course reading the moral leanings of each individual event, and the juxtaposition of those events, would be a tiring affair and not to the point. The point is that it is no accident that the last 'gag' of the film rings somewhat bitterly, because despite being ostensibly a moral tale about the dangers of uncontrolled sex, the way the film is structured the "morality of sex" is never part of the equation. The female desire of men is the one unqualified good in this film, it is the one place where there is the opportunity for hope, for life, everything else in the film is being judged for its inability to provide a location for this type of interaction to flourish. Not only the women, not only the men, not only the correctional institution, work, alcohol and children; the entire world is being judged, because it fails to make room for something beautiful.

More than one person dies at the end of this film.

Buy Three on a Match on video here

I honestly cannot decide whether Seven Brides for Seven Brothers is a fantastic movie or really horrendously horrible. So I am going to briefly describe what I find interesting aboutit and let you determine (comments encouraged!).

I love musicals, because they tend to replace causal logic with singing and dancing, and generally causal logic is a negative in films, whereas I consider singing and dancing to be positives. This film shows off the full extent causal logic can be done away in a musical plot, and it does so straight out of the gate.

The main character is a mountain man, who comes to town to get a wife. He manages to find a woman to marry him and go up to the mountains that same day, largely because of the quality of his singing. She gets up to the mountains and finds out he has six brothers, and she has to take care of them all. She ain't too much into that, so the oldest brother decides they all need women too (because obviously they can't take care of themselves). There are various hijinx while trying to collect these women, but since the boys are brutes they don't have much success. They go back up to the mountain and the woman teaches them all manners, so at the next country dance they can impress these ladies with their charm.

Of course the competition between them and the town boys really comes down to a dance-off, which the town boys only win because they cheat. The brothers all go to town later and kidnap the women, taking them up to the mountain. Of course the women don't like that they have been absconded with, and so they refuse to talk to the men. Still, there is an avalanche, and they are stuck up there all summer, and get to liking each other. There is a climax where everything is resolved... primarily through dancing.

While there is nothing truly more obnoxious than a singing dancing mountain man (I mean that seriously), the breakdowns in logic that this film seems to enjoy flouting have their inevitable charm. While the complete disregard for anything that can be considered normal sexuality is a bit too absurd to be "subversive" (I mean that in a good way), I'm sure that won't stop those keen to interpret messages into a film to find a progressive or conservative message in the constant sexual posing. God knows what message it is they will find.

I know there is a large crowd out there that enjoys camp, but I am quite definatly not one of them. Camp is usually developed from "exposing social codes," through absurd juxtapositions of these codes, as opposed to pure nonsense which exposes the abstract workings of the self through presenting sensory imaginings.

That may not have entirely made sense, but what I am trying to say is that the musical is utopian, whereas camp tries to prove that utopianism is false. In doing that it only proves that camp isn't very intelligent.

Those of you out there who are inclined to synthesize information, may read the bizarre number of posts where I try to tie issues like love, death, religion, and surrealism, into a single movie that's ostensibly about cops, robbers, or spaceships, and think that I can read these four subjects into anything. Of course some others might glance at the database nature of this site, and come to the conclusion I'm not one who is inclined to synthesize information.

I mention this now, because Jesus' Son is another movie that I enthusiastically enjoy because of its ability to combine death, love, and certain surreal moments, with an overwhelming religious tone. Though there are differences between this movie and other movies I have noted thus far, I would classify the films as part of the same general "conversation."

The film is based on a series of short-stories by Denis Johnson centered on this rather lost young man. The film ads a rather lost young woman to the mix, and ties the stories together with an overarching redemption narrative. This later little bit is what I find most distasteful about the film, because redemption narratives on the whole are distasteful, but we don't really need to dwell on it, since I didn't realize the redemption narrative was there until around the fourth time watching the film. The rest of the film is far too charming to notice anything like a defective plot. (I should note, that this leads me to conclude that the collection of short stories might be the perfect adaptation material for a film).

The plot, as I mentioned, essentially circles around a lost young man, and his girlfriend who gets him addicted to heroin. The young man is called FH by most everyone, which stands for F#$khead, he also has a strangely in depth knowledge of theology. The woman is a heroin addict, and that's about it.

The reason why I don't classify this film as being about love, is that the female character is not really a character, she's a metaphor for something. In the film she really serves as a focal point for the main character's overwhelming passion for everything worldly and dying (the same thing...). Everything she does in the film is physical, dancing, ripping his clothes off, doing heroin, punching him (it helps considerably that Samantha Morton is a wonderful physical actress who can't deliver lines worth a damn). One of the most telling scenes is when he hallucinates her into a drive in movie (in Carnival of Souls to be specific), her actions are like lights projected, which he is simply happy to watch.

She dies of course, as things have a tendency to do. A lot of things in this movie to be exact, at least 3 humans, and a whole lot of baby rabbits. The attitude towards death in this movie is summarized by a minor character later in the film who the main character has a relationship with. Every one of her husbands, every person she has ever loved, has died in some sort of strange situation, from this she has come to see herself as lucky to be alive, and to value every moment of life. When she is having sex she raises her hands to the heavens as though she is in church.

The "value" of life is further brought home by the strange and beautiful moments that are scattered throughout the film: The flying naked woman, the man who comes into the hospital with a knife in his eye, the hallucinations at the drive in movie, seeing Jesus' heart inside a drug dealer, the interactions with the Mennonites, and ultimately the young man's total absorption with his girlfriend.

The relationship in the end though is not about love, and this film is not about redemption, or heroin. It is about the awe which one should have for the strange beauty of life.

Buy Jesus' Son the Book

Buy Jesus' Son the Movie

I don't know what's wrong with the producers of the DVD for The Asphault Jungle that they couldn't use anyone better than Drew Casper to do the voice commentary on the film. This is a film I like very much, and something of a classic in the John Huston Canon, there is no real point in hearing Drew Casper talk about it though, so I'd like to be on the record saying that they need a different voice commentator.

The film is a film about women masquerading as a crime film. All of the main characters have certain "issues" with women. From Dix's complete ignorance that they exist (while a woman is aggressively after him), to Emmrich and Riedenschneider's obsession with women, to finally Cobby's overt homosexuality. Even the men who don't have "issues" with women, need money due to their responsibility to women (Ciavelli). The heist is only there to draw these characters together, and show how the common attachment relationship to women (or the idea of women), is something that defines each of these character's relationship to this venture that will eventually ruin them all.

That's also what's so lovely about Marilyn Monroe's little role in this movie. It is clear that the lawyer honestly loves his wife, but his relationship with Monroe is something unreasonable, something strange that he has no control over, similar to the professor's obsession with young women, and Dix's confusion when it comes to young women. Money is simply a matter of business for these people, There is a certain logic to money, but when you begin delving into the ways of a young woman then you are getting into the religious.

What's so lovely about this film, is every character is motivated to crime through a vague notion of the mystery of the almighty. That certain things make life worth living, and those things are inevitably mysterious.

Buy the Asphault Jungle here

This is a movie that I enjoy talking about, but no one really enjoys listening about. Hopefully though, my readers are the type who enjoy reading about pornographic films made by a notorious Japanese New Wave director (Oshima Nagisa). In the Realm of the Senses is really a very beautiful movie, and conceptually it complicates an issue that most people would rather remain simple.

The film is based on the true story of Abe Sada, a Japanese woman, who in 1936 developed an obsessive love affair with Ishida Kichizo, which ended with her asphyxiating him and cutting off his genitals. She carried his genitals in a little bag around her neck until she was picked up by the police 3 days after the crime.

What is so interesting about the story, and the film only alludes to, is that Abe Sada garnered a large amount of sympathy in Japan, while the country was in the process of invading China. In many ways, the actions of Sada and Ishida were seen as a reaction to the militarization of society. While the Japanese were speaking of sacrifice of life for the country, and strict dicipline, Sada and Ishida were escaping society to sacrifice their lives purely for the sake of passion.

This is never explicitly said in the film, but the war is constantly an undertone. The most explicit moment when the escape from militarization is depicted is when Ishida is seen on the sidewalk of street filled with soldiers marching to the war, Ishida is trying to make his way through the crowds watching them in order to get back to his lover. This theme is also ever present in the desire of Ishida to give up his life for a greater cause, the cause though is only the woman he loves, and not the abstract idea of a country.

Japanese citizens in 1936 were racing towards death, post-war literature in Japan always describes the overwhelming feeling of the inevitability of death during this time, not an eventual death, but death within a few years, many Japanese had resigned themselves to the fact that they would never grow old. The two characters in this film embody that attitude, they just choose to sacrifice their life for passion, and not country. Their society has well prepared them for death.

The film is pornographic, and is also known for being at the center of one of the most famous censorship trials in Japanese history. Details of the trial are in a book of Nagisa's collected essays, and I suggest reading the book for more details, some of the other essays collected in it are quite nice. The film also has beautiful cinematography at points.

Buy in the Realm of the Senses

Buy Cinema, Censorship, and the State: The Writings of Nagisa Oshima

One of the great things about all of the Universal Horror films (or essentially all the horror films made before Hitchcock popularized surprise effects), is the way they manage to combine really superb conceptual work with a complete disregard for anything resembling a coherent style. While Dracula and Frankenstein are much more stylistically intense film, conceptually nothing can surpass The Mummy.

(I should note at this point that the film was directed by Karl Freund, who is known to be one of the best cinematographers ever. Leave it to be said though that I don't remember the style as much as I remember the conceptual work.)

The film centers on one of those strikingly good looking Eastern European actresses who seemed to have flocked over to America around this time just to enliven Hollywood productions. In this film she is a lovely English woman with a tendency to wear thick eyeliner. Two men are in love with her, some haughty Englishman, whose father is the archaeologist that uncovered the Mummy's tomb, and the Mummy himself, who was mysteriously brought to life several years earlier. The woman it seems is a reincarnation of the Mummy's ancient love, and he desires to have her back.

Both men face hurdles in their desire to obtain the woman, the Englishman because he is a pompous asshole who is continually proposing sex to her (yay pre-code movies!), and the Mummy because in order to have her he must first kill her. She eventually chooses the Englishman, and we are all disappointed (unless she is still possessed by the princess!!!).

The mummy of course is secretly the good guy in the film. He has been in love with a woman for over 2000 years, and the young Englishman is only interested in a quick screw, but because the poor mummy is 'living impaired,' he has to kill the woman to really be with her, and of course the woman doesn't really love him that much, and would much rather have a toss in the hay with the British guy then eternal love after death.

There are so many ideas running around in that plot that I really don't know where to start. The first noticable thing is the direct connection between death and love, which can be turned wildeian without much of a stretch (' Yet each man kills the thing he loves/By each let this be heard,/Some do it with a bitter look,/Some with a flattering word,/The coward does it with a kiss,/The brave man with a sword!). The idea of death as a marital consumation has been around for a long time, and it can be seen in Double Suicide, and In the Realm of the Senses (I know I chose two Japanese films, just a coincidence).

When the love-death proposal is rejected then the woman is instead given the opportunity of life-sex. A juxtaposition that really would not have been allowed in a film between 1934 and 1960. It is a pleasent juxtaposition too, the idea that the sex act really proves that we are still alive, and that we need to somehow prove that we still exist before our flesh begins to rot in the grave endlessly.

I like this movie, its fun to watch, and it is really about how love consumes you.

Buy the Mummy here

Frenzy is one of my favorite Hitchcock movies, and I don't just say this because of the wonderful ending. What makes this film really great is that it seems to show the type of director Hitchcock would have been he started his career at a different time. Because while Frenzy is the most grusome of Hitchcock's movies, it is still prototypically Hitchcock

The plot does not need description, but it should be noted that the film uses a theme which is quite clearly Hitchcock's favorite. The main character is falsely accused of some sort of horrific crime, but while he did not commit the crime, he secretly wants to. This theme is most strongly pronounced in Strangers on a Train (in fact, if you take out the Macguffin... Hitchcock's term for the plot that covers up the psycological aspects of the film... Strangers and Frenzy are essentially the same movie), but also Notorious, I Confess, and The Wrong Man.

Hitchcock is also really most in his element when working outside of the Hollywood system. In my modest opinion (and most people seem to disagree with me), his English films are far superior to his Hollywood films, and his best Hollywood film is the one that he made for no money with a TV crew (Psycho). There is a certain freedom in his early English films, and his post studio system films, which is taken as far as possible with Frenzy.

Everyone should see Frenzy just because it is a great film (unless you have a real problem watching movies with sex crimes in them, which I can completly understand). What really makes Frenzy important to my mind though is how it puts the rest of Hitchcock's films in the right light.

Buy Frenzy here