Change Your Image
jib122-1
Reviews
Sudden Fear (1952)
great noir
This is a great movie - the opening of the film has Crawford claiming that Palance's character doesn't have the "look" required to say her lines - he isn't romantic enough. So, he sets out to prove that he IS romantic enough by wooing her for real. In one seen he woos her by quoting the play she kicked him out of, thus, wooing her with the very lines she said he wasn't romantic enough to say on stage! This a wonderful juxtaposition of theater and reality - he sets out to show her he can play romantic by being romantic in real life - BUT - the real deep and interesting twist is that he is just acting the part in real life, playing her for her money! She is unable to tell, so what does this prove? To what extent is 'looking the part' essential to real life? She saw it as essential to the role on stage (and she turns out to be right, since the play is a big hit with his replacement); but how far is she able to endure the acting in real life - that is, the only 'looking the part' and not really having the 'being' of real romance? Great twisting questions through a deeply suspenseful and psychologically gripping noir (it's Crawford, what would you expect?).
Match Point (2005)
great movie - what IS chance?
Allen is at his best here, and while at the narrative level it is similar to the Martin Landau sub- plot from Crimes and Misdemeanors, it is primarily concerned with the relation between chance and fate - which is always at stake in tragedy, both in Opera, but especially in Greek tragedy (Sophocles is, of course, directly mentioned in the film, and there is also "Mighty Aphrodite"), So, I am a little surprised so many people reviewed the film without mentioning chance, and how it is played with in the film. It is not chance that the lovers meet again, it is his character leading him to search her out. Then, at the end (spoiler coming!) with the ring playing th opposite role we expected, the ball goes back into the other court, so to speak, and it appears that chance played a much larger role than the film led us to believe was Allen's own belief for the majority of the film. Brilliant, masterful, amazing, playful and wonderful twist - far better than any simple "plot twist" could ever be.
Also, there are lots of class issues at play (with the interplay between character/fate and chance at the heart - why do poor people stay poor? Is it chance? etc) - with the film they go to see early on being explicit in raising this issue - The Motorcyce Diaries - I wonder what Allen is saying, or, trying to get us to consider on this interrelation between class and fate and chance?
The Girl from Monday (2005)
deep movie if you have the skill to look past production value
I would like to suggest to those who comment on this film, of which there are many, that if one is to judge this movie as 'simplistic' or trite, then one has to answer a set of questions raised by the film -
1. What is the relation between embodiment and desire? Hartley raises this beautifully with the presentation of the girl, and intertwines it with the other themes (among many!) that I would like to point out.
2. What is the role of Christianity in this film? The word become flesh, the girl reading a study bible, the interviewer asking Jack if he is religious, and the idea of sacrifice and martyrdom all raise this issue in interesting and provocative ways. (this is especially interesting considering the film's conclusion and the question it raises about the possibility of a messiah in a capitalist context (i.e. where "value" only means monetary value))
3. What is the relation between desire and the structures of society? Does desire resist that power structure, or is it rather created by that power structure? The film raises the question of whether or not the resistance that is possible is also "good for business," and suggests that desire is fully malleable by the power structure. BUT, it also opens the possibility for real resistance, without being overly optimistic about this.
There are many many other interesting questions raised by this wonderful and thoughtful film, but these are just a few that immediately strike me as central, and which do not seem to play a role in the criticism of the film voiced by many of its detractors.
It is important to develop the skill to enjoy many types of film - important insofar as it simply increases pleasure in watching film - and so it is best to be able to ignore problems with the low production value and bad acting and to enjoy it for its strengths, rather than focus on the negative and not enjoy one's time with the film.
P.S. Anyone else wondering about the references to Homer's Odyssey in the film? So many questions . . .