Filed under: 2000's, Canadian, Cinematheque, Pilon, Benoit, Quebec, Ungalaaq, Natar
The Necessities of Life
dir Benoît Pilon
wri Bernard Émond
starring NATAR UNGALAAQ, also from the Fast Runner
2008
Cinematheque top 10 of 2008
seen Feb 2009 – with Pilon and Natar at the opening, to speak.
Ticket given to me by the lovely Michelle, who was going to Montreal to see her newborn nephew. What a foolish girl, to give up such a ticket, for a mere child.
Well, what can we say? The 8.2 is easily deserved. Bravo! Based on the true stories of a Tuberculous epidemic in the Canadian North in the 1950’s. Natar plays Tiivii, who is shipped south (literally) to be cured in Quebec city, but has no one there to speak his language. They bring a boy who does, later. The film has only a moment in Iqaluit (or rather outside of, on the tundra above the tree line). Natar’s face is wonderfully expressive, and the script and story are very simple, and very, very good. It is well shot, with good establishing shots, and again, good simple close-ups with heavy depth of field, always done unobtrusively.
The talk afterward was equally good. The straightforward and sophisticated answers from Pilon contrasted and mingled well with the sometimes abstracted and always entertaining replies from Natar. He said the film made him feel proud of being Canadian. When they asked for the first question or comment, Natar turned to the host and said, “I thought it was good”. However mostly he was quiet, and referred to Pilon.
Now not many times will I write this in a review: Go see this film! But I am sorry to say, you will not enjoy it as much as I did.
Filed under: 2000's, Bourdon, Luc, Bujold, Geneviève, Canadian, Cinematheque
from Canada’s Top Ten film review (2008 films, viewed Feb 2009)
at Cinematheque
Dir. Luc Bourdon, who was there to open the film and give a short talk, and Q and A, afterwards.
Canada, 2008
With spot appearances by
Geneviève Bujold Bujold (very, very young – I wonder which film?), Igor Stravinsky, Oscar Peterson, and Paul Anka. Hmmm.
IMDB 8.0
Now it’s Canadian, it’s about lovely Montreal, and it’s a nice film. So one must be careful not to dislike it because it gets treated like something exceptional, given an IMDB 8.0/10 (!), makes the top ten, and all the blog reviews are ecsatatic. But really now – it’s found footage of Montreal from the NFB, pretty much all from the 50’s and 60’s, and it’s beautifully edited with really good sound. The sound is more exceptional when Bourdon explains that’s it is all original – just as it seemed. HHe/they added no footage, altered no colors, and only used sounds from existing Montreal footage as well. So for all of that, it’s great.
But let’s get down to brass tacks. It is by definition somewhat of a marginal film – a very good marginal film – but there is of course no plot to speak of, no acting, and it is a little boring to watch. It is an excellent boring movie! But stuill, let’s be honest and say it’s a bunch of old footage put together very skillfully. It’s not a giant work of art. But it’s good.
A givaway too, in the talk, was Boudon explaining that they purposefully used pre-political footage (not about the uprisings to free Quebec) and non-famous films – unknown films – to keep that particular quality that it has. But that does not quite gel with the Paul Anka, Peterson and especially the Stravinsky, which Bourdon says is actually from Toronto. (It’s Stravinsky conducting and speaking, in instrucvtive terms, to his orchestra). Now I agree that the Stravinsky part is great, and as Bourson says, ‘film is lies’… I like all that. But it does show a little how the film needed some spicing up. Found footage may be the darling of a quickly aging avant-garde set, but one can try over and over again to explain how it’s art and how fascinating it is, but it’s never going to be a Rembrandt. That’s why you have to explain it – it lacks the intrinsic narrative on it’s own.
Very likeable fellow, that Bourdon. And the editing was seemless. the sound was great. It all had an authentic charm. Good for a chilly night in February. Perfect sort of film to have a nice down-to-earth film-maker do a talk about afterwards – no posing about it’s ‘radical’ structure, or some such nonsense. And it seemed a lot like Montreal, here is our less civilized Toronto.
Oh – and the scenes with a so young Bujold were very nice to look at. one must admit more Montreal then Paul Anka. And it shows that a little bit of fame – dispite the claim to be aiming for anonymous films – can add to this sort of portrait. Because after all, she’s so lovely to look at, who would want to leave her out, famous or not? Certainly not, if she were not. Ah ha, the internet says the film was Le temps des amours, by Hubert Aquin.
Dir. Michael Anderson
USA
1976
IMDB 6.7
Novel by William Nolan and George Clayton Johnson and TS Eliot ‘Old Possum’s Book of Practical Cats’
Star Michael York
Borrowed DVD from Eric Barkey
Knox, 2008
In the future you are have a mark which shows at age thirty, at which point you are ’sent up’ in a ritual ceremony. There are police (Logan) there to stop – the runners, who try and escape. But Logan becomes a runner. Is it true that the ritual renews us for a better life, that it is for our protection – or is there a more sinister answer?
It is a utopian ideal story. The society has been constructed in a controlled way for maximum productivity, efficiency and happiness, at the cost of old age. Logan, of course, represents the human striving for freedom against models of society (and humanity) which are incomplete, and harmful, but which are enforced in the situation where individual egoism (for creating a new ideal world) overtakes the purported concern for the greater good.
It’s not a very good film, really, but it captures the imagination. The tagline is good, the actors and actresses are beautiful, and the concept is sound. It’s a little flat – the acting, the execution of the plot, everything. But it still stands as the prime example of a type.
One could judge it by the white-washed image above, and say it would be a beautiful film, or by the movie poster, and say, well, it’s not exactly art, is it? Clearly an ideology film, with a stiff but admirably clear approach.
Filed under: 1960's, Cardinale, Claudia, Cinematheque, Delon, Alain, Italian, Lancaster, Burt, Visconti
dir. Visconti
Burt Lancaster – the Prince, Fabrizio , Alain Delon as Tancredi), Camille Claudelle
—
1963
Over 2 hours
Viewed at Cinematheque summer 2004. Had gone to view another film; on the wrong night. The Leopard was sold out, however someone had phoned in to cancell their pre-purchased tickets, and so the cinema gave them away (!) to first comers. I’ve seen it there since, a couple of times. It’s always just as good.
—
utube – the entrance of the heroine
IMDB 8.0
but it is my favorite film, of all time, and all places.
—
A masterpiece. Lancaster is the late middle aged aristcrat, father of the young, debonair Tancredi, and observer of the fall of his era to the red shirted Garibaldians swarming Sciliy – the rioginomoso. He makes a magnificent speech, saying that “we are the lions and the leopards, now of a past age�”. Lancaster knows his time is doomed and so votes with the inevitable regime, so as to, as he describes, at least slow the demise of his finer age, which is, in any case, inevitable. Thus we see and elegant bowing out by an elegant age.
Tancredi is also a very interesting study, who by his father’s own description would be useless at making money and in practical matters, but has everything in terms of magnetism, boldness and a certain new nobility about him. One could think of him as that famous young man from Stendhal’s novel Lucien Leuwen, in that he has “waged war ceaselessly on cigars and new boots” (a description by the boy’s father). Thus he should marry rich. He is, they say, the product of his age and family, and ‘one who is not only the product of his circumstance, but would be possible only under such circumstance’ – that being the last flowering of a declining nobility. There is your movie – an elegant, beautiful, historical tale of nobility in noble decline.
Five Stars.
—
QUOTATIONS
—
“Something had to change, for everything to stay as it was.”
Fabrisio (Lancaster) to his friend the poor artist, who voted no in the plebiscite (the plebiscite which reported 515 registered voters, 512 votes, 512 YES and zero for NO!). Fabrisio (the Prince) says that the interests of the monarchy are maintained by the Savoys, and that the plebiscite was necessary to avoid anarchy. A lesser of two evils.
Chaplin
1940
2 Hours
IMDB 8.4
—
Not bad, funny, with sound. The moralizing speech at the end shows the quixotic frailty of Chaplin himself; an odd, beautifully simple-minded idealist; one in great earnest.
four stars, but no more
Filed under: 1980's, Brault, Michel, Bujold, Geneviève, Canadian, Cinematheque
dir. Michel Brault
Canada 1987
85 min
Geneviève Bujold
Claude Gauthier
Cinematheque, Nov 2008
IMDB 6.6 which tells that IMDB is not infallible.
A lovely little film.
Geneviève very young.
A young man has nothing, has some romance, and a young girl falls for him. In the end, to our surprise, he makes it big.
Nice camera work, well written. It was all pretty good, and none of it was spectacular.
Again, a nice film. Looking back at it, 4 months later, I’d say this film left a strong impression. The young man comes down the river from his small town to Montreal; Genevieve so young and vulnerable, working in a coffee shop, and the whole ‘portrait’ aspect of the film. It shows the migration from the small town to the city – the young man still just plays his own folk country tunes, which resonate strongly with both the urban montreal audience in the film, and with you and I, in the theater.
It’s sets up a whole tone of transition: the characters are young and growing up, and they are moving from a hand-to-mouth rural life, one day at a time, guitar case or coffee pot in hand, to grow up a little, and see something of what it means to stick around.
So, in retrospect, I’d say see it, and find yourself a fireplace and a warm cup of coffee, possibly with a drop of something in it.
Clouzot
IMDB 8.2
1955 B&W
Not as good (more conventional than) Wages of Fear, however very good. One might even, after that superb ending, forget some of the earlier less striking parts and mistakenly say that the entire film was fantastic. Such is the the great strength of the ending of the film, even if one expects something good, and even though the ‘twist’ is not so unfathomable: it is just somehow very well executed.
Stars a rather steely blong, a nasty dark haired man and a very nice girl, who may be the actress listed with the same last name as the director. Set in a somewhat decrepit English boy’s school.
The ending is complemented by a directive written in very large letters across the screen at the end asking viwers not to spoil the ending for others and so not to disclose it to their friends etc. Clearly a film bracing itself for many enthusiastic referrals.
Summer 2004, Cinematheque
Dir E Rohmer
1967
IMDB 7.2
4th (?) of the six moral tales
Terrible film. I guess early Rohmer.
Talking head moving. Annoying characters are ‘justified’ by overlay dialogue of their explaining how their lame actions are the result of their profound sensibility/ Yuk.
However the young girl is lovely. It is three people at a country house belonging to a mutual friend – the young girl, and the two annoying gentlemen. The protagonist spends the movie telling us how he does not want the girl, and how they are playing some sort of social game, but clearly he just wants her and she does not know what she wants. But she’s great to look at.
dir. Chabrol, Claude
France 1960
w/ Stepane Audran
IMDB 7.3
Not the best Chabrol – Stephane is v. young, however it is decent. In the end, as expected, a murder twist, although really it is a story of 4 shop girls being pursued by men and, in their own discreet way, doing some pursuit themselves.
Early Chbrol, which means in some ways more offbeat than good.
Filed under: 1960's, Bunuel, luis, Cinematheque, Deneuve, Catherine, Spain
dir. Luis Brunel
1967
Cinematheque
IMDB 7.7
It can be believed that Hitchcock would love this film as the lady in question has a returning flashback image of horse bells jingling that corresponds with her infidelity and discontent. She is a perfect enigma (which Hitchcock would love), but more importantly, a motivated enigma, according to he past and upbringing. Freud would likely have something to say as well about the distinction horses have in the revealtion to young persons of the physical form, exaggerated by the size of the animal, of the organs of the sexual apparatus.
I myself found the film perhaps too enigmatic, and too fleeting and ‘deep’ for my tastes. However one cannot help admiring Catherine Deneuve’s white hot and freezing cold oblivion. Just when one begins to think she is really nothing at all – she turns her face, slowly, and one feels a slight flush coming on in admiration of this cool princess.
