BLACK SUNDAY/ THE MASK OF SATAN (Mario Bava; Italy; 1960)
Horror around Halloween? How obvious. My only comeback is that I thought I was grabbing Black God, White Devil off the university library shelf - I was hankering to re-view Rocha's masterpiece, but it seems the spirits have something else in store for me. Ooooooooo. Bwah hahaaa. Etc.
Actually, I had Bava's film lined up to watch for ages, for two reasons. 1). It's on a list I feel compelled to conquer (ahh, film lists, the blood of my movie obsession, the bane of my anally-retentive tendencies). 2). Unlocking the Barbara Steele mystique. The images for this film have haunted me for years - Ms Steele with he big googly eyes, pierced face, staring straight at you as if she is about to claim your silly little cinema-loving soul. Fortunately, her hilarious ham-acting in Shivers un-did a lot of the tension regards her eerie screen presence - her ridiculous heavy petting moment when she hisses "kisskisskisskisskisskissssss" cracked me up. Now I just need to see a bit more ham from the film that generates the "Creepy Big-Eyed Barbara" mystique and I'll be fine.
If the plot is fairly standard and creaky, then at least the film is interesting to look at. The film is most memorable for its stark monochromatic look - blackest of blacks and sharp angular white. Monochrome is crucial, for the camera often drifts into cavernous dark nooks and crannies, immersing us in chills of sheers darkness. The film emits cold.
Best of all is that sense of mapping that cinema sometimes elicits, where characters move one way, and the camera tracks back to where we just were a moment ago. Early in the film, two doctors stumble upon the tomb holding the witchy and apparently deceased Ms Steele. As they travel away from the tomb in their carriage, the camera lingers briefly on their exit, then starts to gently move back to the path they came from, moving down the path towards the black opening in the tomb, the size of the blackness getting larger and larger as we approach the tomb again. You have the awful sense, just for a moment, of having been left behind, left with the blackness and impending doom.
(Abbas Kiarostami; France/ Italy; 2010)
O.K., we pretty much know the story behind the film by now – Kiarostami has returned to true-blue narrative film-making and has also made his first film outside of the framework of his native Iran. It may be that Kiarostami's placement of this film within the Euro-art-house film brigade will rankle the fans of his signature style, and perhaps there may be some kind of backlash against this film.... but if the film is viewed on its own terms, then we have something that is actually enjoyable and rewarding. The film is almost like a game. The English man is a philosopher, the French woman is an antique dealer. He has written a treatise philosophising about the copy of a work of art rather than original, while she deals with both original antiques and copies. They meet, they talk, they argue, they travel through the Italian countryside. Soon it becomes difficult to discern reality from pretend in their relationship, whether they are newly-met and are playing the role of husband and wife, or whether they have in fact been once married and initially played the role of not being so familiar with each other. Or perhaps the viewer is fooled, believing that the relationship can be easily assessed in a clear black-and-white manner. And all of this is not so far from Kiarostami's earlier work – for example, Close-Up also manipulates the idea of real and not-real. The incremental shift in this relationship unravels with near-imperceptible grace, and while William Shimell is a tad wooden, Juliette Binoche once again reveals her inexhaustable talent.
(Jacques Rivette; Italy/ France; 2009)
I slept through a large swathe of Rivette's last film Don't Touch The Axe, for reasons other than boredom, when it was shown at MIFF 2 years ago. Having not experienced a huge deal of Rivette's work as yet, I pumped myself to the gills with caffeine to experience his latest film. No need for caffeine - it's his shortest film, at a mere 85 minutes!
Rivette handles the short form extremely adeptly. In essence, it is still a puzzle-film as only Rivette can do, with an Italian traveller attempting to unlock a woman's anguished relationship to her past life with a travelling circus.With a shorter timeframe Rivette doesn't have much time to interweave a number of plots with varying generic styles, like he does with his long films, but working with a tighter framework has resulted in an economy of Rivettean modes – he elides serious drama and comedy by layering both on top of each other, such as in the scenes with the clowns performing their comedy routines so wearily in front of dwindling audiences that all humour is wrung out. For me, this film does not match the magisterial heights of Celine and Julie Go Boating or La Belle Noiseuse, but as a simple 'intro' to the man's work, this is a humble and masterful addition to his canon.
