Monthly Archives: September 2004

OIAF, fest report

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As a follow-up to yesterday’s post, Kevin Nikkel, an independent filmmaker living in Winnipeg, has submitted a festival report for OIAF and some of the best films he saw there. –Doug

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Dial ‘M’ for Monster

By Kevin Nikkel

Film festivals are strange things. I flew to Ottawa for the weekend to attend the now annual Ottawa International Animation Festival. Itís been a long time since I was in Canadaís capital. Itís always a treat wandering the streets of a city with a long history and lots of culture.

The festival took me by surprise in several ways. Far too many shorts, features, seminars and retrospectives to see. Miyazaki, Robert Breer, Co Hoedeman, and Popeye retrospectives to name a few. Animated Soviet propaganda and French animation from the last 40 years. Where do you start?

Another thing that took me by surprise was how easy it is to be overwhelmed amongst so many people. The first day of the festival was a very lonely experience; watching films for me is typically a social experience with people close to me and for various reasons I wasnít connecting with the many friendly regulars of the fest. This changed the following day when I met a friend and animator from Winnipeg who was out for the festival; this humanized the fest for me and I marveled at how conversations with people that I met during the remaining festival helped frame my experience in a different light.

My own animation Dial ëMí for Monster was playing the festival out of competition. I was rather underwhelmed by the screening of the film and I think I know why. The festival is an animation fest first with only a selection of animations for kids. The screening of my film was slotted with other kids films at a more remote venue which made it difficult to attend the screening. I’m looking forward to a different atmosphere next month when it plays the Chicago International Children’s Film Festival.

Since Iím currently making short films I opted to see as many of the short films in competition as possible. I wasnít disappointed by my choices of screenings. Several short animations are worth noting:

Ryan
The Grand Prix winner by Chris Landreth was groundbreaking for me. A CGI animated documentary that offers an interview with Chris and the washed-up legendary animator Ryan Larkin (worked in the 1960s, claim to fame is the Canadian National Film Board [NFB] short Walking which was nominated for an Academy award). The psychological motives and subtext of the interview are cleverly animated and it succeeds because both Chris and Ryan are under the psychological microscope. It is moving to watch the humanness on both sides and I was left thinking of my own life as an artist during the screenings. This is a must see.

Son of Satan
The winner of best student film by JJ Villard is provocative. Hard to believe this is a student film. It is an adaptation of a Charles Bukowski story that doesnít spare any of the brutal details. The rough style and technique of the film mimic the content of the story. Lots of notes made by the filmmaker in me.

La Piccola Russia
By Gianluigi Toccafondo of France. This is amazing. The story feels like an experimental Dostoyevsky novel sketched by Marcel Dzama then dipped in globs of paint.

Nibbles
By Chris Hinton. Chris tells the tale of a family fishing trip where everyone including the fish and bugs are hungry. The simplicity and roughness of the style appeals to me.

NFB masterclass sessions with Chris Landreth (maker of Ryan) and Chris Hinton (maker of Academy nominee Nibbles). These two filmmakers are making some of the best animations around at the moment and both had many practical things prepared for the packed sessions. These are the seminars that filmmakers dream of attending.

I also attended an interesting panel of critics titled ìYour Criticism Sucks!î Interesting to see the debate for true criticism in the face of the capitalistic studio system is happening in several genres. The claim that animation will always be live actionís forgotten step sibling was repeated during the discussion. Itís curious that there is such an insecurity in this genre. Heard from some good people and discovered some great web sites to track the animation world: www.cartoonbrew.com, www.animationblast.com, and www.fpsmagazine.com.

The festival helped me confirm my love for animated cinema. Seeing so many people so passionate about animation was fascinating. Seems that watching cartoons as an adult isnít as strange as its made out to be. Too bad more attention isnít given to the genre to allow it to grow.

Ottawa IAF, critic-artist

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Mr. Reaper’s Really Bad Morning

The Ottawa International Animation Festival, a very large and impressive event, concluded on Sunday and included several retrospectives (Hayao Miyazaki, Robert Breer, and others) and scores of new works. Two of those works involved Canadian friends of mine, John Torvi’s animation in Mr. Reaper’s Really Bad Morning (2004) and director Kevin Nikkel’s Dial ‘M’ for Monster (2004).

Kevin also attended a seminar entitled “Your Criticism Sucks!” Here is its description:

Is critical commentary of the animated film dead? Useless? There was a time when there was a vibrant, if small, voice for popular criticism of the animated film; of cartoons, both commercial and personal. Today, there is a large gulf between critical commentary that is increasingly impenetrable in its pedantry and, for lack of a better term, non-critical commentary: unqualified praise for every piece of empty commercial product that is force-fed into our cultural diet. How tender must walk the publications which on the one hand purport to write about the field, while on the other hand depend on the good graces of industry for content and advertising? Does the preponderance of internet discussion lists obviate the need for legitimate widespread (and often by necessity, harsh) criticism that doesn’t fall into the slots of commerce? Where are the voices of vigorous independent criticism?

I’ve always maintained that there are a lot of bad stereotypes about film critics out there, and often insist that people shouldn’t confuse mainstream reviewing with engaged criticism of contemporary film in all of its guises. There is a long, if not entirely well-known, tradition of critics interacting in healthy ways with filmmakers, from the French and Soviet critic-filmmakers of the ’20s to AndrÈ Bazin’s friendships with Renoir and Rossellini and the youths of the future Nouvelle Vague to contemporary critics like Jonathan Rosenbaum, whose friendship and collaboration with Jacques Tati is well-known and who recently printed his early correspondences with Abbas Kiarostami in his book, Movie Mutations.

I don’t think critics and artists need to necessarily have an adversarial relationship, and both can benefit from positive encounters: critics can learn more about the craft of filmmaking or the intentions of specific artists and filmmakers can learn more about formal analysis or have their work promoted by independent voices. In the opening lines of Dudley Andrew’s biography of Bazin, FranÁois Truffaut writes, “At the moment of AndrÈ Bazin’s death, we were all present at something truly rare: artists paying tribute to a critic! Indeed, Luchino Visconti, Jean Cocteau, Robert Bresson, Marcel CarnÈ, Luis BuÒuel, Orson Welles, and Federico Fellini felt strongly enough to write in public declarations and in letters to Janine Bazin that for fifteen years they had found in Bazin a man of open mind and unfettered intelligence, whose analyses had been genuinely helpful to them in their work.”

I myself have a particular fondness for animation, and this seminar description presents the sort of challenge I hope to meet in the future here at Filmjourney.

Hourigan on Bresson

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One of the pleasures of doing websites devoted to specific filmmakers is meeting people who come out of the woodwork (or cyberwork or something). Not long after starting Robert-Bresson.com, Trond Trondsen and I were contacted by the UK writer-director Jonathan Hourigan, who had assisted on L’Argent (1983). Jonathan has been a great encouragement to us ever since, and we are proud to announce a new interview with him conducted by Colin Burnett that we have just co-published with the film journal Offscreen. It details Jonathan’s friendship with Bresson and his experience on the set of what was to be the filmmaker’s last project:

“I arrived in Paris in late June 1982. My first day working on L’Argent was Tuesday, 29th June, which I think was the 10th day of Principal Photography. I arrived with the crew working at the photographic shop, located on the Boulevard Henri Quatre. My abiding memories of that first day were the oppressive heat, the apparently slow pace of work and Italy’s 2-1 victory over Argentina in the World Cup, to the great delight of [cinematographer] Pasqualino de Santis and his Italian crew. . . .”

The complete interview may be accessed here.

L.A. Korean IFF

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This weekend, I had the opportunity to attend the Los Angeles Korean International Film Festival at the American Cinematheque. (Why the word “international” was included, since it only featured Korean films, is beyond me.) LAKIFF screened recent films by two of Korea’s most acclaimed filmmakers, Hong Sang-soo’s Woman is the Future of Man (part of the upcoming NYFF line-up in October) and Kim Ki-duk’s Samaritan Girl–both films are already available as Korean region 3 DVDs. Hong was actually supposed to attend his screening and offer a Q&A that I was very much looking forward to, but he was held up by the Vancouver International Film Festival and unfortunately had to cancel his appearance.

Both films are cleverly made, with substantial thematic ambition, but I’m not sure that either one qualifies as an unequivocal success. They do, however, signal genuine talents who remain filmmakers to keep an eye on within Korea’s vibrant New Wave.

Woman is the Future of Man, like Hong’s previous works, deals with young adults in contemporary Korea and focuses on their awkward romantic relationships, their histories and present conundrums, and difficulties in aligning their short-term behaviors with their long-term desires. In many of Hong’s films, characters indulge in a variety of spontaneous and seemingly unfulfilled adventures–often sexual in nature–while overarching meaning remains elusive. In some ways, his films resemble a Korean riff on the work of Eric Rohmer, a filmmaker he has praised, in their use of urban settings and long conversations captured by an unobtrusive, quasi-documentary camera. But unlike Rohmer, whose films often seem illustrative of a larger philosophical worldview beyond the details of his narrative, Hong’s films seem more focused on the details, an expression in and of itself of the difficulty of forming and maintaining identity and relationships in the modern world. (“For me,” Hong told koreanfilm.org‘s Darcy Paquet at Cannes, “filmmaking is an expression of my being at the moment of making a film. . . . I try to view things or people or situations without any doctrine or ideology to interpret them.”) Hong’s films are filled with wonderful observations of contradictory human behaviors, subtle tensions and social mores, and humorous or ironic parallels, but he largely leaves ideological summary to the viewer. Woman is the Future of Man ends en medias res.

The minimalist narrative of the film involves two reunited college friends, filmmaker Hyeon-gon (Kim Tae-woo) and art professor Mun-ho (Yu Ji-tae), who decide to track down Seon-hwa (Seong Hyeon-a), Hyeon-gon’s former lover whom he had abandoned in order to study in the US; unbeknownst to him, Mun-ho also had an affair with the young woman during Hyeon-gon’s absence. Their threeway reunion is therefore fraught with indecision and tension despite the fact that Mun-ho is currently married to a different woman (who is briefly heard, but never seen in the film). Their interactions–eating, drinking, making love, visiting parks, walking in the city–are a combination of romantic fancy and perpetual indifference, attempts to engage in relationship and remain narcissistically aloof.

I enjoyed the film from scene to scene, Hong’s witty dialogue and juxtapositions provide a source of continual amusement: when Mun-ho offers the new-fallen snow in his yard to Hyeon-gon as a welcoming gift, Hyeon-gon takes a few steps into it and then retraces his foot positions, as if he had “only gone in one direction,” when in reality he had “gone back and forth”–a playful metaphor for Hyeon-gon’s trip to the US, where has was assumed to have stayed, as well as possibly the film’s narrative arc (if it can be said to have one), in which Hyeon-gon’s search for Seon-hwa merely becomes a return to solitude. But Woman is the Future of Man ultimately seems more episodic and less thematically expansive than Hong’s previous film, Turning Gate, in which a Chinese myth provides a fascinating parallel to the unfolding drama on screen, and its few flashback scenes lack the structural complexity of Virgin Stripped Bare By Her Bachelors. The film held my attention, but its single-minded focus on momentary behaviors and feelings seems less compelling than his previous work. On the other hand, Hong’s understated tone is the sort of approach that can hide unexpected profundities that might yet emerge upon extended reflection.

By way of contrast, Kim Ki-duk’s cinema is renowned for its vivid imagery and raw emotional content. I confess that it’s not a style I’m generally attracted to (I tend to fall in the Bazinian “less is more” tradition), so reviews have steered me away from his notoriously violent works–his US crossover release, Spring, Summer, Fall, Winter…and Spring, was apparently a comparatively benign work and is the only one of his films I’ve seen. But even then its mixture of Buddhist reflection and human brutality and suffering never quite solidified for me.

The Samaritan Girl seems to be a fusion of the devices of his earlier work with his more transcendental concerns of late. It focuses on the relationship between two teenagers, Jae-young (Seo Min-jeong) and Yeo-jin (Kwak Ji-min), who are prostituting themselves in order to raise enough money to travel to Europe. Or more specifically, Jae-young is prostituting herself and Yeo-jin is organizing her trysts; paradoxically Jae-young (who compares herself to a Buddhist saint) is the happiest of the two, whereas Yeo-jin feels increasing pangs of guilt and despises their clients. When Jae-young meets a tragic fate, Yeo-jin decides to recontact all of their clients and sacrifice her own chastity as penance–an act that threatens to destroy her Christian father’s sanity and ignite his quest for revenge.

Given the intensity of the plot, which could be said to share some affinities with Bergman’s The Virgin Spring or Paul Schrader’s Hardcore, the film is undeniably difficult to watch and Kim pulls no punches where hopes are unattained or violence ensues–one fistfight to the death inside a public bathroom is particularly horrifying. But Kim also laces his film with moments of unexpected tenderness: Jae-young’s naive idealism, Yeo-jin’s warm relationship with her father, and the attempts by the characters to redeem themselves or the world around them are touching. And the film begins to draw considerable tension between its dual concerns of suffering and redemption, and the convoluted philosophical mire between them.

As I left the theatre, the best way I could make sense of the film was to see it as a Buddhist account of the necessity of non-attachment, that attachments (to oneself, to others) bring suffering and that salvation lies in letting go; certainly this idea rings true for several characters in the film, and as such, suggests that feeling responsible for others or attempting to redeem them can be a misdirected philosophy. So much of the pain in the film is transferred from person to person as each one suffers through his or her attachment to someone else. But in reading several interviews with Kim today, I’ve discovered that he often refers to himself as a Christian, which suggests that his film may be some kind of autocritique, or that I have entirely misjudged its connotations, or that Kim has inadvertently presented a film which doesn’t immediately reflect his stated philosophical inclinations–each option or all of which, I suppose, lie within the realm of possibility.

But as convoluted as the film’s philosophy of spiritual healing may be, Kim is a strong visual stylist and several scenes in the film provide moving images of suffering, perseverance, and rebirth. Each character has a breaking point and the film becomes quieter and more reflective afterward and its final images are vivid and memorable. Whether or not they provide closure for the narrative’s thematic concerns will likely depend on the viewer’s own understanding of the pain that precedes them.

TIFF update 3

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The Holy Girl

Here’s my latest batch of reviews for the Toronto International Film Festival. Stay tuned for another collection of commentary in the next day or two…

La Noire de… (1966)

81-year-old filmmaker and novelist Ousmane Sembene is known as the “father of African cinema” and is surely one of the most poorly-distributed world masters. New Yorker Films owns the rights to his films in the US, and they haven’t even seen fit to release them on VHS. Invariably, the Pan-African Film Festival here in Los Angeles screens a film of his every year or two, and completely by accident, I stumbled across his 2000 film, the vibrant and witty Faat Kine while driving past an art house on Wilshire Boulevard last year. MoolaadÈ, his latest film, has received such good word-of-mouth–particular by critic-celebrity Roger Ebert–that it may yet appear in a few US theatres at some point. And yet as happy as I am that the film is receiving North American attention, I have to wonder if its subject–female genital mutilation–doesn’t somehow play into Western stereotypes of the “brutal” African continent, its poverty and disease and social turmoil. Sembene has made many different types of movies over the years, but it’s only when he makes a movie about the sort of hot-button social issue that’s championed by Hollywood stars that he receives the attention he deserves. Or so the cynic in me argues.

All that to say that it was indeed a pleasure to see the rarely-screened Black Girl (La Noire de…) even though the MoolaadÈ screenings were sold-out; I felt I received the better end of the bargain given the difficulty of seeing Sembene’s early work.

La Noire de… was released in 1966, based on Sembene’s debut novel, and is often considered the first sub-Saharan film to receive international attention. It depicts the life of a young Senegalese woman who is employed as a maid for a chic French couple. Tensions abound when they move from Dakar to the south of France, and despite the romance of European culture (the only scenes filmed in color are those of their entry into the promising modern city), the young woman, who understands but doesn’t speak French, slowly recognizes the constraints of her position and the ways in which her employers take advantage of her, demanding that she extend herself above and beyond her duties to become, in her eyes, a modern slave. Sembene elevates the story of the young woman to a critique of the relationship between post-colonial Africa and its difficulty in transcending its European shackles.

Sembene chooses to manifest this theme most strongly in an African mask the young woman brings with her, an object the French couple immediately assumes they own and which they hang on their wall as a fetishistic memento of their ownership of African culture (and, by extension, the Senegalese woman). The European appropriation of African art as decorative artifacts rather than living culture reminded me of Chris Marker’s and Alain Resnais’ documentary, Statues Also Die, and the mask becomes a potent image of the way culture–and people–can be purchased and subsumed by others.

On a side note, this screening was followed by a Q&A that suffered terribly from audience members utilizing their fifteen seconds of mic time to promote their research, worldviews, and general soapbox platitudes rather than pose any specific questions to Sembene or his two moderators. Given Sembene’s forceful personality and penchant for interrupting his translator, who was speaking for both the audience and Sembene, and the moderators’ attempts to interject their own commentary, the Q&A was utter chaos. My friend Darren tells me the Sembene discussion after MoolaadÈ took place outside in a garden and it sounds much more ideal. Note to future festival goers: if you attend Q&A’ s, make sure to ask real questions and try to be as succinct as possible, leaving time for others to speak as well. You’ll be much appreciated.

The Holy Girl

One of the highlights of the festival for me was this Lucrecia Martel (La ciÈnaga) film from Argentina, a movie composed of extremely tight compositions and a heavy attention to the sound design, particularly the quiet, subjective nuances of a teenager’s perceptions, the ambient sounds of dripping water or uncertain breathing. At Cannes, a journalist told Martel her film resembled an aquarium, and she loved the analogy. (“I love aquariums. And referring to my films, I would like to add that I also adore the fish inside.”) This film’s evocation of everday intimacy surrounds the viewer in deeply provocative ways.

The Holy Girl focuses on the relationship of two 16-year-old Catholic girls and their budding sexuality and intellectual curiosity and cynicism–instead of listening to their earnest choir director talk about her spirituality, they whisper to one another about the woman’s romantic liaisons. When a sexuallly-repressed visiting doctor inappropriately presses up against one of the girls, she decides to save his soul, and Martel’s wonderfully ambiguous play with desire, shame, faith, intimacy, and transgression becomes a heady mix of interrelated themes expressed through hushed conversations, subtle performances, and a nearly palpable, enclosing atmosphere.

Martel’s film has apparently been picked up by Fine Line Pictures, so I’m looking forward to seeing it again. Of all the films I saw at TIFF, its feel for characters and place and their inner worlds remains in my mind the most vividly and its questions linger.

CafÈ LumiËre

Yasujiro Ozu is one of my favorite filmmakers, and so is Hou Hsiao-hsien, the Taiwanese director who rose to international critical prominence during the 1980s and ’90s, but for different reasons. I like the calm warmth of Ozu, his ability to order life’s turmoil and shifting relationships through the specificity of his gaze. I like Hou for his beautiful, extended gaze, his attention to the effects of history and social change on the individual, and modern disconnection and alienation on the soul. CafÈ LumiËre, Hou’s tribute to Ozu, is definitely more Hou than Ozu–just as it should be–and working in Tokyo with Japanese dialogue only goes to show how universal Hou’s perspective really is. Using Ozu narrative fragments, such as a young woman whose romantic aspirations (a love affair with a man living in Taiwan) shock her more traditionally-minded parents, Hou extends them into his own terrain; rather than a bittersweet meditation on human behavior a la Ozu, Hou’s film is a study of the inevitability of modern alienation and the need to accept it while retaining and discovering that which is human and eternal. Hou’s long, extended takes of silent parents and resilient wanderers performing mundane tasks (laundry, cooking, riding public transit) simultaneously entices the viewer to appreciate the physical realities of modern Japan while searching for a deeper significance in the everyday.

In his interview in the 1993 documentary, Talking With Ozu, Hou explains: “I think Ozu is like a mathematician. He knew the lives of Japanese people very well and depicted them in his work. It’s as if he analyzed them in a detached way. . . . I used to think that my observations of the human condition were very objective, but I can’t compare with Ozu.”

It’s clear that this detached objectivity is a guiding force behind Hou’s film (and much of his oeuvre). Gone is Ozu’s piecemeal construction of space within a scene; Hou’s famed master shots take in everything at once. A primary visual motif throughout the film is the many trains traveling in Tokyo, which reinforce the image of restlessness and intertwined yet separate lives passing each other in close proximity while never quite fully meeting–one memorable shot actually links two friends passing each other in separate trains, unaware that a slightly redirected gaze could actually bring them together. (Ozu fans may also be tempted to guess at these characters’ fate, but Hou leaves the possibilities open.)

One of the most pleasing aspects of the film was the fact that a couple good friends of mine, intelligent moviegoers but admittedly not hardcore fans of Taiwanese cinema, both enjoyed the movie quite a bit. I was worried that Hou’s placid, contemplative style might have turned them off, but the film’s ultimate admiration for tranquility in a changing world entirely won them over. The movie ends with a classic Ozu setup, a dinner between people who have much more to say to one another than they dare, that is also full of the sort of nuanced character interaction and quiet humor that typifies some of Ozu’s most beloved films. (There’s even a direct reference to a scene in Tokyo Story that involves a neighborly, if culturally precarious, sharing of sake.) Hou’s film deftly addresses his usual contemporary themes graced with the charmed acceptance of Ozu, and the mixture provides one of the strongest films of the festival.

Land of Plenty

After a day of subtle, nuanced pictures, Wenders’ latest film, painting its drama in significantly broad strokes, struck me as didactic and quasi-naive–even though its story (dealing with a socially-committed daughter of Christian missionaries and her relationship with her militant, armed, and paranoid uncle) alludes to a post-9/11 critique of American culture I happen to agree with. Wenders firmly sides with the young woman, who attempts to contact the family of a murdered Pakistani homeless man in Los Angeles’ skid row and redeem her uncle’s racist, violent motives at the same time.

But Wenders is clearly hoping for wide exposure and the film wouldn’t find itself out-of-place, or unwelcome, as a TV movie of the week anytime between now and November 2; a conservative, middle class viewership would definitely be the film’s intended audience, who would likely be moved by the simple, earnest idealism of Michelle Williams’ protagonist.

What I personally found most intriguing about the film was its production method. Written in three weeks and shot on digital video in two, each crew member (from Wenders on down) earned $100 a day and a percentage of the film’s profits, keeping the entire budget for the feature at half a million dollars, an infinitesimal percentage of most mainstream filmmaking budgets. And the film looks very good, with vivid Los Angeles and desert locations and Wenders’ typically polished lighting effects and widescreen compositions.

It’s odd, I hope this unabashedly sentimental film finds its audience, but I have no desire to see it again.

Updates…

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While I’m finishing my TIFF notes, I thought I’d mention a few unrelated, but exciting tidbits.

ï The films ofCarl Dreyer are currently airing this month on TCM, and it’s always fun to make new converts; on Monday, a coworker came into my office and asked if I’d ever heard of a silent film called The Passion of Joan of Arc, a movie she glimpsed on TCM and is now planning to buy her first DVD player simply so she can own the Criterion disc. And Image Entertainment has just released Dreyer’s The Parson’s Widow on DVD this week. My friend Russell Lucas, mild-mannered lawyer by day and adventurous cinephile by night, sent in these interesting comments about the film and its marriage themes:

“I enjoyed The Parson’s Widow. It’s a funny movie. My wife snorted when I told her beforehand that the film was Dreyer’s comedy, and I was a little unsure of what to expect myself. It’s actually kind of Chaucerish without the bawdy, as there’s some mistaken identity, some thwarted and misplaced affections and some clergy characters that either fit into easy boxes, or which seem to have chosen the profession as a means to an easy income.

Dreyer’s different film stocks or filters or whatever to create the outside/inside contrast was innovative, and actually quite pleasant to look at once I understood his design. It made me want to look a little into the early history of shooting nighttime scenes.

The way that marriage is treated forms a nice companion to Dreyer’s Day of Wrath (1945), which was shown before. There’s so much going on in Day of Wrath, but I’ve always admired the way the unnatural art of witchcraft is juxtaposed against the unnatural art of making marriages that ignore the passion the young rightfully feel for each other. Its common form is the older patriarch and the young maiden, so it’s nice to see that reversed in The Parson’s Widow.

The way that Dreyer treats these unequal marriages or marriages of convenience was also interesting in light of Satyajit Ray’s Apu Trilogy, which I also finished this weekend. The moments when Aparna drops her shyness and Apu comes to love her are really spectacular and well-acted. I fear that Aparna’s fetching vitality and alacrity to accept the life of a clerk’s wife is largely there to make us feel all the more deeply the loss that Apu
feels when she is lost. Or maybe that’s not fair; it’s also sometimes the case that narratives which portray the tragedies and hardships of life and the inability of the life of the mind to transcend those hardships use ill-conceived or arranged marriages to worsen the situation–I’m thinking particularly of Hardy’s Jude the Obscure. The outcome of Apu’s marriage is a wonderful human touch here. Apart from the contrast between his Western learning and his getting ensnared in an irrational tradition, there is presented the possibility that something good and redeemed can come from the accidents and vagaries of superstition and misfortune. A marriage arranged by frantic and desperate strangers can end up bettering any other.”

ïAt Robert-Bresson.com, we’ve added large scans of Nouveaux Pictures’ upcoming DVD releases in the UK (region 2) of Au hasard Balthazar and Mouchette, two of Bresson’s greatest and most poorly-distributed films. The discs are due October 25.

ïAnd more wonderful news from the UK, Fnac.es has announced that on October 7 it will exclusively release Victor Erice’s mesmerizing Dream of Light (El sol del membrillo [Quince Tree of the Sun]) on DVD, a movie that was voted the best film of the ’90s in an international poll courtesy of the Cinematheque Ontario. Apparently, this release has been personally supervised by Erice himself and will come as a two-disc set with more than two hours of extras, subtitles in six languages, and a 40-page booklet.

Toronto Cont’d, L’Intrus

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L’Intrus

Well, I arrived back in Los Angeles this afternoon, and I’ll be posting comments on all of the films I watched in Toronto in the next couple of days. The festival was a truly whirlwind experience, particularly since I stayed with some friends outside the city in Mississauga, which ensured a nasty combination of late nights and early mornings. Large doses of coffee, increasingly blustery weather, and sheer enthusiasm propelled us through the week despite only getting five or six hours of sleep a night. At the same time, as Darren pointed out, the car-pooling and shared accommodations also enjoyably dictated a bit of group dependence and cohesion rather than what could have been an extended experience of passerby hellos and occasional glimpses of one another.

It deepens my conviction that film criticism is a social act, and certainly cinephilia and festival going are as well. And one of the most enjoyable aspects of my social exchanges at TIFF was their gracious diversity–casual film watchers and budding cinephiles mixed with film obsessives, first-time TIFF attendees and seven-year veterans, many of whom had never met before but were granted equal conversational space like the single large platter of Ethiopian food we shared on Friday night. It was endearing to watch the multi-talented Girish, one moment gesticulating and eyes blazing while passionately defending one film or another (“He could be a character from Waking Life,” Darren quipped), and the next moment carefully considering another person’s perspective, whose thoughts were equally important to him. As I mentioned in my previous blog, the opportunity to spend time with these folks, people I usually only chat with online from day to day, made an already ideal event virtually transcendent.

Which brings me, oddly enough, to the single most controversial film at TIFF (if dinner conversations are any indication), Claire Denis’ L’Intrus, a film I’m still rather ambiguous toward. It plays like an elliptical narrative, but in fact, probably isn’t one, and I can’t shake the conviction that this structural ambiguity is a flaw in its overall artistic design, lacking the proper cues to lead viewers in an engagement of the film. I spent the entire two hours–I’m convinced–totally misreading the film’s basic structure and I don’t think there is any way I could have avoided that. I have often had to reevaluate my interpretation of a film, but I have rarely had to reevaluate my perceptions of the fundamental structure of one. It’s like watching a comedy and suddenly realizing it was really a horror film once the credits roll. Girish loved the movie, but when pressed, he admitted a comment I made before his screening (something to the effect of, “I have absolutely no opinion regarding the film”) cued him to expect something avant garde.

No doubt if I had recognized L’Intrus as an experimental work, I would have subdued the strong narrative hints the film offers in my assembly of its meaning, and thus enjoyed its fragmented portraiture in and of itself instead of working so hard to piece together something which likely isn’t even a puzzle. I strongly feel it is an artist’s responsibility to structure his or her works in ways that cue the viewer toward the work’s overarching interpretive scheme: Godard’s playful use of absurdity and illogical repetition in Pierrot le fou or the episodic, talking heads approach of Linklater’s Waking Life alerts the viewer early on that the unifying principles of these films lie beyond narrative concerns; I don’t feel it is possible, without previous warning, to engage Denis’ work in the same way. In fact, I’m convinced that a second viewing is pretty much necessary to read the film the way she intended, and even then one’s interpretation of meaning seems pretty much up for grabs, a project that seems too individualistic–or even narcissistic–for my tastes, whether it’s Mulholland Drive or Denis’ inarguably beautifully-lensed and rhythmically seductive picture.

But I’m still pondering this one…

This most frustrating of films inspired some of my best conversations with Girish, even though I had to assure him that I was disagreeing purely out of the pleasure of hearing him defend it, and as a way of appreciating our differing responses to the film and our perceptions and values in general. And what more could we possibly want from any film?

TIFF update

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Trilogy: The Weeping Meadow


One of the pleasures of this year’s Toronto International Film Festival for me personally has been the opportunity to spend time with friends I rarely get the chance to see (J. Robert and Robert Davis as well as folks from Alberta), finally meeting friends I’ve known online for some time (Darren Hughes and Girish Shambu), and generally enjoying the city’s unique ambience, sights and sounds. This morning, I even ran into Jonathan Rosenbaum in a crosswalk, an encouraging Masters of Cinema supporter and a favorite critic, and I expressed my admiration in the middle of Bay Street. (Darren later told me it would’ve made a great Onion headline: “Internationally-renowned film critic and rabid cinephile killed by oncoming traffic while discussing festival picks.”) Now in my fifth or sixth day of attending TIFF, I thought I’d go ahead and spend some time this afternoon posting a brief summary of my screenings so far.


Childstar (dir: Don McKellar)


Canadian friends clued me into McKellar’s work a few years ago, and his latest is pretty much what I expected: a witty and well-told story about a spoiled child actor and the adults who take advantage of his career. It’s a solid Canadian entry, a film with a clear narrative development, charming performances, clever dialogue, and a disarmingly modest feel which manages to cloak subversive commentary about Hollywood film production and the general cultural mix of naivete and bravado of Canada’s southern neighbor.


Earth and Ashes (dir: Atiq Rahimi)


Afghan director Rahimi was born in Kabul, but studied film in France. This movie, his first feature, was adapted from his novel about the life of an elderly man and his rambunctious young grandson, both of whom are resting at a crumbled wall in the Afghan desert before their rendezvous with a family member in order to discuss the recent bombing of their native village. Rahimi displays a strong visual style (golden light filtered through dusty hillsides), an effective attention to place and the perceptions of his protagonists (unexpected flashbacks and ambiguous behaviors only gradually acquire meaning), and a strong feeling for the passage of time. One extended shot midway through the film depicts a drinking glass in a balancing act, rattling away in quickening motion that eventually attains stasis. Similarly, the final sequence of the film is comprised of a gradual focus: a man leaves a conversation, walks through the desert, becomes isolated, begins to sing. The image fades but his singing continues in darkness, a tribute to human dignity and its perservance through time.


Midwinter Night’s Dream (dir: Goran Paskaljevic)


I’m not familiar with Serbian director Paskaljevic’s oeuvre, so I was excited to see his latest film as part of the Masters series; after all, the world can never have enough masters. Unfortunately, the film didn’t convince me to rush out and familiarize myself with his work. It has several undeniably strong elements: cold, striking cinematography and ruminating, Bergmanesque performances, and its interest in telling a human narrative addressing Serbia’s recent war-torn history is admirable. But the story, about a man returning home after having spent years in prison and attempting to resurrect his life through his relationship with a lonely woman and her autistic daughter, turns dishearteningly pessimistic without any real dramatic necessity other than tragic manipulation, an approach that seems at once easy and self-important, as if the more the characters suffer, the more crucially their plight is revealed–von Trierism at its most heavy-handed. I thought it was telling that the post screening Q&A centered more on the production’s use of a real autistic person in the role of the daughter rather than any of the social or emotional issues the film purports to raise. It ultimately seems more intent on acting on the viewer rather enticing him or her to share its concerns.


Trilogy: The Weeping Meadow (Dir: Theo Angelopoulos)


So far, the highlight of the festival for me was Angelopoulos’ gorgeous period drama about a family of Greek refugees fleeing to Thessaloniki, and the way their personal lives play out within the political climate of early-to-mid century Mediterranean culture. I had previously read some negative press regarding the film so I had diminished expectations, but throughout the picture, I marvelled at Angelopoulos’ ability to provide powerful and unique images to describe the human condition. Young lovers eloping through sodden fields; refugees living in a honeycomb of tents within a candlelit theatre; grandiose but delapidated towns on the brink of historical transformation; the flooding of an entire village; the slaughter of sheep hung from a towering tree; a musical performance of political resisters hidden within blowing sheets drying on a clothesline. A lot of the striking imagery relates people in groups–immigrants, revelers, soldiers, rescuers, sufferers, and mourners–an entire mass of people moving through history together. And set against this sweeping canvas is the intimate drama of a family holding on to their unique identity, hopes, and aspirations. It’s a film full of tremendous pain, yet brimming with undeniable hope and astonishing beauty.


Un Pays sans bon sens! (Dir: Pierre Perrault)


I’ve always loved documentary filmmaking, and figured TIFF’s choice for its Canadian retrospective series, the films of Pierre Perrault, would provide a solid introduction to this poet-writer-anthropologist, On the basis of this 1970 documentary, I’ve now purchased a book of essays on the filmmaker published by the Cinematheque Ontario and look forward to delving more into his work. The film is a compilation of Quebecois talking heads describing their culture and history at a time when the region’s desire for seccession and nationhood was gaining substantial ground. Engagingly ordered through questions and thoughts written in longhand by Perrault featured as title cards, the film is a colorful and fascinating portrait of a time and place.


It’s not My Memory of It–Three Recollected Documents (Dir: Julia Meltzer, David Thorne)


I was so moved by the two features in the Wavelengths experimental series at this year’s TIFF that I wish I could’ve attended more . This film was a 25-minute meditation on government surveillance and its flow of information, wonderfully and provocatively depicted by constantly rearranging vertical ribbons of words assembled from shredded documents, juxtaposed with an audio commentary comprised of interviews with CIA operatives describing their investigative procedures in general terms. It’s a visually arresting and thought-provoking assembly.


Anaconda Targets (Dir: Dominic Angerame)


Ten minutes of horror, this film is simply a US infrared video of the military bombing of an Afghan encampment that features the reconaissance of various individuals, vehicles, and buildings within an area that are subsequently targeted and incinerated by missiles. The radio exchange of the bombers’ voices and their superiors giving orders provide the technical and emotional audio commentary. CNN this is not.

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This brings me up to Tuesday evening, but now I need to dash off to Agnes Varda’s Cinevardaphoto, so I’ll have to later add my comments on, among other films, Claire Denis’ confounding L’Intrus, Ousmane Sembene’s stimulating La Noire de…, Lucrecia Martel’s intoxicating The Holy Girl, Hou Hsiao-hsien’s tribute to Ozu, Cafe Lumiere, and Wim Wenders’ Land of Plenty.

TIFF preview

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I’m hoping to try something new for Filmjourney‘s coverage of the Toronto International Film Festival this year. Last year, my friend J. Robert Parks, film critic for Paste magazine and Chicago’s Hyde Park Herald, sent in ongoing updates. This year, not only am I attending myself, but several more friends will be there as well. Thus, I hope to blog summaries linked to various write-ups.

I won’t be arriving in Toronto until tomorrow, so J. Robert sets the stage with his festival preview. –Doug

* * * *

by J. Robert Parks

My friend Mike Hertenstein describes it as the equivalent of Christmas morning. He’s referring to the day the schedule comes out for the Chicago International Film Festival, but it holds true for Toronto’s festival as well. I’m not embarrassed to say that I had trouble sleeping the night before the Toronto program arrived at my door, and I woke up before 7 a.m. that morning for the first time in several months because I was so excited. When I was nine, Christmas held the promise of new toys. Now that I’m 37, the last Wednesday in August holds the promise of new movies, movies that no one else has seen before, movies that I may never have a chance to see again. That’s no exaggeration. Naomi Kawase’s Shara, my favorite film from last year’s festival, hasn’t played anywhere else since, and my hopes that it’ll receive even a small distribution deal have faded away.

But with over 300 movies to choose from and only nine days to see them, how do I whittle down the possibilities to just 40? How do I decide to see a mystical film from Thailand instead of an earthy, Russian movie? Why do I choose a dusty movie from Afghanistan instead of an acclaimed documentary on wine? And why is almost everyone in Toronto scrambling to get a ticket for a film about female genital mutilation in Africa?

You ask any festival goer, especially the hardcore cineastes, and he’ll be able to describe in excessive detail how he arranges his schedule. For me, I have a complicated system that takes into account various factors: the country where the film was made, if the movie has played at other festivals and won any prizes, whether people I respect are hoping to see it. I upgrade shorter movies and downgrade three-hour epics (the festival experience is tiring enough without a 200-minute epic). I check out reviews from the European festivals and what they say about movies playing in Toronto. The most important factor though, is the director. I’m not a hardcore auteur theorist, but I do believe that good directors usually make good films, and the filmmaker’s track record is the best indicator of future quality. So if AgnËs Varda has a movie in the fest, I’m probably lining up for that one. Same with Lukas Moodysson, Zhang Yimou, and Michael Winterbottom. And when Toronto brings not one but two Kiarostamis, well I’d sell my prized Dire Straits bootleg for tickets to those.

Other things that play a part are if I know and like the actors involved. I’m a sucker for anything Zhang Ziyi is in, so that makes House of Flying Daggers an easy choice. Judy Marte was impressive in her debut, Raising Victor Vargas, so I’m willing to give On the Outs a chance. I also look for movies that handle themes I’m interested in: issues of faith and truth, poverty and class, adolescence and growing-up. And finally, there’s just gut feel. Sometimes, I see a picture in the program, and I want to see it. Last year, the photo for the Russian film The Return was startlingly beautiful, so I bought a ticket, and I was thrilled I did.

So, having said all that, what films made my cut this year? Well, first the bad news. Though I desperately wanted to see Notre musique, Godard’s most-acclaimed feature in years, the two public screenings were scheduled for Thursday and Friday morning, and I’m not arriving in Toronto until early Friday afternoon. Ditto on a movie from Hungary called After the Day Before, which sounded exceedingly interesting. Three movies I was hoping to see sold out before I could get tickets: Ousmane Sembene’s MoolaadÈ (the aforementioned female genital mutilation movie), Pedro Almodovar’s Bad Education, and an anthology movie called Eros, with contributions from Wong Kar-wai, Steven Soderbergh, and Michaelangelo Antonioni. But that still leaves me with 38 movies.

And now the list. The movie title comes first, then the director in parentheses, and then a short description of why I chose this one.

Fri., Sept. 10

4:45 — Oyster Farmer (Anna Reeves): There weren’t a lot of choices for my first film, so I went with this Australian tale of a “fetching young man” trying to adjust to the sleepy farming community of New South Wales.

7:15 — Touch the Sound (Thomas Riedelsheimer): Riedelsheimer directed the gorgeous documentary Rivers and Tides, so this new documentary about a percussionist and sound design sounded inviting.

9:45 — Turtles Can Fly (Bahman Ghobadi): Ghobadi directed the beautifully provocative A Time for Drunken Horses. Plus this film is about the lead-up to the war in Iraq, but from a very different perspective than we’ve received in the U.S.

Sat., Sept. 11

9:30am — Tropical Malady (Apichatpong Weerasethakul): this young Thai director made Blissfully Yours, one of the best films I’ve seen this year, so I’m anxious to see what he does next

12:15 — Clean (Olivier Assayas): Assayas isn’t always my cup of tea, but the film stars the luminous Maggie Cheung as well as Nick Nolte, who has done some very impressive work in the last few years. The reviews from Cannes were also strong.

6:00 — Nobody Knows (Hirokazu Kore-eda): another movie that drew great praise at Cannes, it spotlights the theme of teenagers and children growing up.

9:00 — My Summer of Love (Pawel Pawlikowski): another coming-of-age tale, this one has great buzz about it after its premiere in Edinburgh.

Sun., Sept. 12

9:30am — House of Flying Daggers (Zhang Yimou): Zhang Yimou, Zhang Ziyi, and lots of martial arts and pageantry. Enough said.

12:15 — 3-Iron (Kim Ki-duk): from the director of Spring, Summer, Fall, Winter…and Spring, this relationship drama sounds strong.

3:00 — Hole in My Heart (Lukas Moodysson): though I’m a little nervous about the buzz on this one (apparently it’s tough stuff), I love Moodysson’s work and his willingness to think about contemporary morality.

6:00 — Earth and Ashes (Atiq Rahimi): I love Iranian cinema. Though this film is Afghani, the description makes it sound like a film Makhmalbaf might’ve made.

8:30 — Wavelengths program #3 (various directors): Last year, I took a chance on a program of avant-garde works, and I was thrilled I did. In the middle of a festival, there’s something useful about seeing something completely different. It’s like a cleansing of the palette, a reminder of the various ways in which we can watch a moving image. So I emailed my good friend Neil Robinson, who knows a lot more about experimental cinema than I do, for his recommendation. Fortunately, his suggestion didn’t conflict with anything else I wanted to see.

Mon., Sept. 13

9:15am — Darwin’s Nightmare (Hubert Sauper): I admit that sleep might get in the way of this screening, but I wanted to see at least a few documentaries this festival. And this one about the effects of globalization on African fisherman sounded compelling.

11:45am — Schizo (Guka Omarova): I’ve been greatly impressed with the films I’ve seen from central Asia in the last couple years, so I thought I’d take a chance on this movie from Kazakhstan.

4:45 — Cinevardaphoto (Agnes Varda): Agnes Varda directed the absolutely delightful and insightful The Gleaners and I. This new personal documentary about photography sounds just as good.

7:00 — On the Outs (Lori Silverbush and Michael Skolnik): the movie starring Judy Marte, but the theme of lower-class Latino teenagers was a draw, too.

9:30 — Be Here to Love Me (Margaret Brown): One thing I haven’t mentioned is what a social festival Toronto is. You’d think that spending all your time in dark rooms would be an isolating experience (and I guess it could be), but I have so many friends that I get to see over these days. We watch movies together, and then we grab a bite to eat and talk about what we’ve seen. This documentary about Townes van Zandt doesn’t hold great appeal for me, but my friend Darren Hughes wanted to see it, and I didn’t have anything else I wanted to see that night. So off I go.

Tues., Sept. 14

9:45am — Lila Dit Ca (Ziad Doueiri): another potential casualty, depending on how tired I am. But Doueiri directed West Beirut, a small gem of a movie, so I’m curious what his next step is

noon — 10e Chambre, Instants (Raymond Depardon): a documentary about the French judicial system, this got rave notices at Cannes.

3:00 — Shake Hands with the Devil (Peter Raymont): another documentary, this one about the U.N. commander in Rwanda during the genocide ten years ago.

6:30 — 9 Songs (Michael Winterbottom): Winterbottom is one of the more fascinating directors working today. Furthermore, the sexually explicit content of this one means that it might not make it to Chicago.

9:15 — Buffalo Boy (Minh Nguyen-Vo): my love of East Asian film comes to the fore, and I can’t pass up a quiet Vietnamese coming-of-age tale.

Wed., Sept. 15

noon — Palindromes (Todd Solondz): after a nice morning to sleep in, I wake up to Todd Solondz. I’m still not sure what I think of this director, but I am interested to see what he does next. Besides, there wasn’t anything at this time I wanted to see more.

4:00 — The Holy Girl (Lucrecia Martel): another huge hit at Cannes, it’s also a nice representation of the explosion in Argentinean cinema.

6:00 — CafÈ LumiËre (Hou Hsiao-hsien): Hou with an homage to Ozu. What more could I ask for?

9:00 — Old Boy (Park Chan-wook): more East Asian cinema, this one’s from Korea and comes highly recommended.

midn. — Kontroll (Nimrod Antal): it feels like I should see at least one midnight movie in Toronto, and this one sounded the most accessible.

Thurs., Sept. 16

9:30am — Yesterday (Darrell James Roodt): a fictional film dealing with African AIDS crisis sounds powerful, but I’m not sure I’ll be out of bed for this one. But I’ll try.

2:00 — L’Intrus (Claire Denis): Denis attempting to tell a story in “purely visual and aural terms.” I’m there.

6:00 — Stray Dogs (Marziyeh Meshkini): more Iranian cinema, and Meshkini has already proven herself with the surreal The Day I Became a Woman.

9:00 — A Tout de Suite (Benoit Jacquot): One last factor I haven’t mentioned is that I like to see at least a few films that will play in next month’s Chicago International Film Festival. That way I can expand my coverage of that fest. Jacquot’s latest is playing in Chicago, and it sounded like it’d be worthwhile.

Fri., Sept. 17

9:00am — Boats Out of Watermelon Rinds (Ahmet Ulucay): a Turkish movie about teenage boys trying to break into movies. Now that’s a festival film.

11:15am — Low Life (Im Kwon-taek): Im’s 2001 feature Chunhyang was my favorite movie of that year. I didn’t like Chiwaeson as much, but I’m still excited to see what he comes up with.

4:00 — 5 x 2 (Francois Ozon): another director’s choice.

6:30 — Duck Season (Fernando Eimbcke): a laid-back comedy about Mexican teenagers might be just what I need at this point in the festival.

Sat., Sept. 18

9:00am — 10 on Ten / Five (Abbas Kiarostami): Kiarostami! Kiarostami! Kiarostami!

12:30 — Diary of a Country Priest (Robert Bresson): I really wish this movie was closer to the beginning of the festival. Even with Chantal Akerman providing an introduction, the rigor of Bresson might be hard to take on day 9. But I’m going to give it a try.

3:45 — Whisky (Juan Pablo Rebella and Pablo Stoll): another movie with great buzz at Cannes. Besides, I’ve never seen a movie from Uruguay before.

7:00 — Eros (various directors): I don’t have a ticket to this, but I’m hoping that somehow the rush line will be kind to me.

9:30 — Brodueses (Eleonore Faucher): a prize-winner at Cannes provides the send-off for Toronto

Well, that’s the lineup. Judging from last year, though, I suspect at least a few of these will change. I’ll hear something good about something else, something bad about a movie I have scheduled. I’ve learned to trust the advice of friends on these matters.

I’ll try to post every day. Thanks for reading.

The Wrong Man

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When I was a kid, I remember on occasion being told–as I protested some punishment or another–that even if I wasn’t guilty of the exact grievance for which I was being disciplined, that my punishment no doubt made up for all those times that I was guilty and wasn’t punished. I remember school teachers and perhaps my parents using this line of reasoning, one that is particularly good at provoking existential worries in ten-year-olds.

Alfred Hitchcock’s The Wrong Man (1956), released this week on DVD, adopts this argument as its rasion d’Ítre and unnervingly suggests that its protagonist, Manny Balestrero (Henry Fonda), may be ultimately guilty of something even if he is innocent of the crime of which he is charged. For a director known for his Catholic subtexts, the film powerfully illustrates the perception of ultimate human imperfection and the way that conviction can well up and mysteriously glide from person to person. In the 1950′s, the Cahiers du CinÈma critics were fascinated with the transference of guilt throughout Hitchcock’s work, and in their pioneering 1957 book on the fimmaker, Eric Rohmer and Claude Chabrol trumpeted The Wrong Man as “a film that not only brings together the themes scattered throughout his work but also eloquently proves that the attempt to illuminate the depths of his work was worth the effort.”

If The Wrong Man has suffered from a less popular connection with audiences than Hitchcock’s other films of the same period like Rear Window, North By Northwest, or Psycho, it’s no doubt largely due to its unique, understated tone. Based on a true story, Hitchcock eschews his typical humor and glamor and wrings an unusually austere, restrained cinematic experience. In many ways, it’s nearly Bressonian, a comparison strengthened by the fact that Fonda’s lean, hunted visage bears more than a passing resemblance to Martin LaSalle in Pickpocket (1959). A hint that Hitchcock took the film especially seriously is the fact that it’s his only film that doesn’t contain one of his trademark cameos; the director merely introduces the film, warning the viewer to expect something different:

“In the past, I have given you many kinds of suspense pictures. But this time I would like you to see a different one. The difference lies in the fact that this is a true story; every word of it. And yet it contains elements that are stranger than all the fiction that has gone into many of the thrillers I’ve made before.”

Balestrero is a struggling bass player in New York City with a wife and two sons. He appears straight-laced and honest and follows rigid structures in his life, arriving home at precisely the same time every night. As his mother–an unusually sympathetic maternal character for Hitchcock–describes him, “I used to worry sometimes [whenever he would be late coming home], but that’s just because he’s so steady, you never expect him to be late.”

Manny is unceremoniously arrested one night on his way home when the police suspect him of having robbed several stores in the neighborhood, and much of the film focuses on the police procedures and rituals Manny is forced to undergo. Riding in police cars, being handcuffed, accused, and charged, making statements, having statements recorded, being transferred to new locations, making more statements, etc., Manny experiences an endless series of routines that are at once invasively personal and coldly mechanical. Repeating his name and address becomes his mantra, a grab at identity in an indifferent universe.

Adopting a straightforward, almost documentary-like approach to these scenes, Hitchcock’s style paradoxically intensifies the story’s allegorical aspects. As Rohmer and Chabrol wrote:

“Like Lifeboat, it is a fable, but it is also the exact account of a real event reported in the newspapers. Can it only be a coincidence? This kind of apologue, often a pretext for mediocrity, is the very genre to which belong the most original recent films: A Man Escaped, Voyage to Italy, Mr. Arkadin, and ElÈna and Her Men. In addition, Bresson, Rossellini, Welles, and Renoir were as successful as Hitchcock in manipulating the seemingly contradictory strengths of the allegorical and the documentary forms . . . Concrete reality gives the story the flesh without which it would be only an intellectual exercise.”

One of the most striking features of the film is its nearly complete separation of protagonist and plot–Manny has virtually no affect on the narrative, and is merely the pawn of a seemingly predetermined chain of events, a completely isolated man without agency. Fonda’s almost ghostlike, subdued performance provides a character who has at some point been mysteriously shut out of the story. In order to compensate for his powerlessness, Manny’s family begins to take a more active role, and it is here that Hitchcock’s fascination with the transference of guilt takes place–latent feelings of inadequacy begin to rise and haunt Manny’s wife, played beautifully by Vera Miles, regardless of the resolution of Fonda’s plight. As she tragically begins a descent into near-madness, the details of Manny’s case, so powerfully emphasized throughout the film, become secondary to larger, metaphysical concerns about innocence, guilt, and judgment–”you know,” Manny says, “like somebody was stacking the cards against us.” And throughout, Bernard Herrmann’s pensive, minimalist score registers their deep-seated unease.

There’s also an admirable class consciousness in the film. Hitchcock intensifies the disparity between the posh nightclub Manny performs at and the working class milieu of his home, the surrounding neighborhood, and various police stations. Several conversations crop up between the police, Manny, and his wife about their financial status and their constant attention to fiscal organization as an ethical responsibility. It’s no accident that Manny’s wife blames his arrest on the fact that he was identified while trying to get a loan, and indirectly blames herself for their economic pressures, family debt, and middle class livelihood.

The Wrong Man is a taught and slow-boiling film that, like the best Hitchcock movies, frames important philosophical and psychological issues within a strikingly effective thriller. That it manages this with significant originality and stylistic ambition makes it a standout piece in Hitchcock’s oeuvre and a film that richly deserves its place among the filmmaker’s greatest works.