Recent viewings, meaning more recent than last month.

In light of some recent personal troubles—in short, the title of my website came disturbingly close to having an unintended double meaning—I’m trying to write more, but the old 100-point system having become arbitrary to the point of meaninglessness, all I can bring myself to do is, y’know, write about the movies. I’m not trying particularly hard here—hell, I don’t have time to—but we’ll see if I can manage something verging on coherence.

Deep End (Jerzy Skolimowski, 1970)

Mike is at once reasonable and freakishly immature in his attitudes towards sex. The high point is the initial encounter with a woman in the bathhouse, in which he flails like a maniac but obviously tries to keep his composure all the while, and the woman makes a subtle shift from trying to seduce him to not caring whether he enjoys the experience. Skolimowski is the rare comic director who explores the possibilities of a scene rather than relying on behavioral exaggeration: when he watches the policeman accept a drink from the porn theater operator, it’s less an indication that the operator is screwed or that the police force is corrupt than that even bad-guy cops like G&Ts.

Klute (Alan Pakula, 1971)

Like how Bree’s attitude—she’s okay, because the guys are nervous, and she isn’t—runs counter to the very conventions the film is built upon, viz. perverse killer gradually succumbs to preying on prostitutes. Also like how Sutherland’s nice guy is also a little weird and withdrawn. But I’m disappointed that that weirdness is divorced from his sexuality, which seems utterly conventional, but that’s a perhaps necessary sop to audiences expecting an ordinary romance. Worse as it goes along, collapsing under the weight of romance and thriller conventions, but even the final villain speech is a surprisingly low-key and contemplative rumination on mistakes made and mistakes to follow.

Lola Montes (Max Ophuls, 1955)

A contradiction: a garish, romantic study of utter emotional isolation. Lola seems as incapable of finding strength in the wisdom of an older man as she does in finding joy in the free spirit of a younger man–and even when she seems close to a psychic match, e.g. Liszt, there’s a constant sense of up-and-down. We’re there with her, wistfully observing the barriers of incompatibility and trying our best to break through them.

Night and Day (Hong Sang-soo, 2008)

For some reason this made me think of Candide—maybe in the protagonist’s persistent, delusional belief that he can suddenly overcome his faults. But Hong doesn’t exactly let it become a running gag: sometimes, the contrast between intention and follow-through is blatant enough to funny, and at other times his dissipation seems to mirror Hong’s. Inchoate and rambling alongside Hong’s features, but I’d like to see it again—maybe there’s more here.

Gomorrah (Matteo Garrone, 2008)

Liked it, esp. the way Garrone blunts a sense of resolution—the final scene is like if Rossellini took on a gangster movie, at least in terms of pacing. I’m with the detractors who are confused as to how the various storylines overlap—I’d imagine that reading the book would be helpful.