Days 4 & 5

LUST, CAUTION (Ang Lee) - 25

[The sort of spy movie where the protag secretly talks to her comrades over the phone in hushed tones, making a serious face, and might as well have ordered a custom t-shirt reading "I Am a Spy, Restaurant Patrons." Not superficially rousing, exactly, but not art; with one or two exceptions amidst a 160-minute running time, A. Lee's second Golden Lion winner in three years is studiously conventional.]

LOVE SONGS (Christophe Honore) - 50

[Didn't even notice the structure lifted directly from Demy's classic, but I did notice that for the second film in a row, Honore planted a reference to a classic shot from BED AND BOARD involving Louis Garrel. Apparently he forgot to cross it off his to-do list, a hasty choice that falls in line well with the rest of this one-off musical, replete with simple 8-bar riffs and uninspiring production values. Not an unpleasant sit, though. Honore can direct a duet as sly exchange of desire, and at least Honore isn't just hung up on Nouvelle Vague: the most obvious bit of plagiarism involves shoehorning Ludivine Sagnier into Spike Lee's signature "floating" tracking shot. And though Garrel's transition into bi-curiosity is not entirely convincing, I admire Honore for not turning it into a statement about the character. I'm hoping Chabrol do to Ludivine what Honore does here, because she's a highlight, her dark crassness a good counterpoint to Garrel's innocent goofiness.]

QUARTET (Nicky Hamlyn) - 28

[Bedroom rhymes, sans movement, like Jim Jennings with no apparent aspirations to formal intensity. Lie down on your bed with a camera, turn to a random angle, shoot for a few seconds, and repeat until you have something vaguely screenable.]

ERZAHLUNG (Hannes Schupbach) [s] - 18

[Comparisons to Nathaniel Dorsky are unearned, on the basis of Dorsky's SONG AND SOLITUDE: Dorsky configures every shot to reflect elements of reality and his own artificial constructions, whereas Schupbach appears to just be chilling out with a sculptor and his posse. Schupbach stated the beginning and end of a shot are important to him, but it doesn't show: while some have little movements (drilling, hosing, looking away), some are inanimate, and no discernible patterns develop.]

GONE (Karoe Goldt) [s] - 24

[R.I.P. Jeremy Blake; Goldt's color-scapes are a simpler variation on Blake's, set to badly recorded music.]

SILENT LIGHT (Carlos Reygadas) - 82

[Other than camerawork that boggles the mind, what resonates here from Reygadas' earlier films is a disconnect between physical beauty and the sexual or emotional pleasure we receive from it. (Sample dialogue exchange: "You left my kids with that fatso." "That fatso is a good man.") Not that Johann's mistress is per se ugly, but by conventional standards his wife is at least as attractive--it basically comes down to one's taste for big noses. The casting is crucial, since Reygadas attempts to stare down the great mystery of whether preference in love is sacred or a mere trick of the mind, an even greater mystery when Woman A and Woman B are apples and oranges. If Reygadas had shaved off 20 minutes from the running time, I might be about 10 points higher on the film; the childhood ennui has its moments, but next to the central storyline often feels like so much dead space. But Reygadas has finally conceived material majestic enough to do justice to his formal ambitions.]

THE ASSASSINATION OF JESSE JAMES BY THE COWARD ROBERT FORD (Andrew Dominik) - 74

[Comparisons to Malick are misguided; Dominik's virtues are a precise control of performances and tone that only wavers when the film's superfluous narration butts in. (You'd think people would at least feel the difference between this film's Ken Burns-style recapitulations of the action and the naive ramblings of a dreamer present in Malick's.) Dominik probably likes dealing with such antagonistic characters to savor the moments in which their antagonism dissolves. Who could forget the moment when Wood and Dick stop fighting and simply look at each other, perhaps waiting for the tension to dissolve, or perhaps a chance to fire the first shot. (Most filmmakers would choose to signal one or the other, as a bluff to the viewer; Dominik's rendering of the moment is exhilarating in its neutrality.) This is the very sort of scene Dominik deserves to protract as long as he pleases--and yet I'm convinced he loses momentum towards the finish-line, as his thesis becomes clear, and Zooey offers too little presence, too late.]

SAD VACATION (Shinji Aoyama) - W/O

[Nice title song; otherwise, WTF? I can't remember a film with a more wildly inconsistent visual plan: elliptical editing here, master shots there, a quite ordinary rural drama for most of its running time. I actually saw about two hours of this, and retained about none of them.]

THE LAST MISTRESS (Catherine Breillat) - 68

[A film, I'm almost sad to report, seemingly created for Breillat to vicariously enjoy the Asia Argento persona. Argento can make impulsively knifing a man look natural because her default facial expression is bemused nastiness. Her Vellini lacks genuine convictions but always effectively replaces them with sadistic glee; she often takes the extra, seemingly unnecessary step, after sympathizing with Ryno, to nonetheless fire one last zinger at him. It makes profound, unspoken sense that she can only fully surrender to him when he's wounded: as atonement for her bitchiness. So why isn't this top-tier Breillat? It feels odd to be leveling this criticism at a filmmaker like Breillat, but the perspective of Vellini, for the most part, registers as too comic, laughing at her cruelty but not yet prepared to feel the weight of it.]