ZIGEUNERWEISEN (1980), dir. Seijun Suzuki

SITE ARCHIVE! (REGULARLY UPDATED)

“Dreamlike” may be the most apt description for Seijun Suzuki’s “Zigeunerweisen,” which doesn’t necessarily rely on logic in exploring the depths of its main characters’ feelings. Both a melodrama and something of a ghost story, it doesn’t have much in the way of conventional narrative thrust; rather, the screenplay seems to feel its way around, guided by the emotional states of the intellectual and middle-class set it depicts.

The first part of Suzuki’s famous “Taisho Trilogy,” the film takes place in a 1920’s Japan where the privileged live comfortably, but perhaps not happily or virtuously. Initially set at a seaside vacation resort, the protagonists include Aochi (Toshiya Fujita), a college professor of German, whose manners and traditional bearing make him the polar opposite of Nagasako (Yoshio Harada), his long-haired and wild-eyed friend. Despite his striking good looks, Nagasako is a hedonist, misogynist, and maybe something worse: when we first meet him, he is being accused of a woman’s murder. Although he claims his innocence to the police, he eventually makes a drunken confession to a local geisha named Koine (Naoko Otani). Aochi, meanwhile, remains friends with Nagasako despite the possibility he is a serial killer.

Photographed in a manner that starts out bereft of sunlight and only gets darker, “Zigeunerweisen” isn’t concerned with crime and punishment so much as the emotionally-charged triangles formed between various characters: Nagasako, Koine, and Aochi; and later, either the two men and Aochi’s wife (Michiyo Ookusu) or a Koine lookalike named Sono. Recurring appearances by a trio of blind, vulgar beggars (who look and act like something out of either a slapstick comedy or zombie flick) provide yet another three-sided relationship, but the film is less an essay than a jangled-feeling procession of images that aren’t necessarily consistent from cut to cut, as well as somnambulant portions comparable to the best of David Lynch.

Some of the film’s more gloriously-deranged moments come with no warning and go without any explanation, but in keeping with Suzuki’s reputation as an instinctive filmmaker, and the context of the protagonists being ambushed by their own feelings and inhibitions, they feel right. A nightmarish sequence where Aochi’s wife tries to escape from Nagasako in her house, only to find him behind every door, reappearing in improbable locations, is one of the best. In another scene, the lights in Koine’s home go out when she and Aochi are alone, replaced by floating mirrors and a single, glowing red lantern. “I feel like I’ve fallen into the fox’s den,” Aochi says. “Am I the fox?” the hostess responds.

Koine later says about the beggars, “They were married to each other. It was the only way they could survive.” The same thing, it turns out, could be said about most of the film’s threesomes. Aochi going home to his woman leaves the rest of female-kind at the mercy of cruel Nagasako, apparently. Likewise, when one character’s wanderlust kicks in, all that’s left for his partners to share is bitterness, isolation, and discomfort. Suzuki and screenwriter Yozo Tanaka stage this pattern for just about every triangular permutation, but it’s setting events in a time period with so much preoccupation over self-pleasure that helps ground the potent, phantasmagorical imagery. Here, the objects of desire tend to become desired objects: Aochi imagines Koine as the kind of mythical creature that could be found in the very books he pores over; meanwhile, the man his foodie wife is infatuated with becomes a thing to be devoured and be devoured by.

As for sex animal Nagasako, he seemingly desires to feast on death itself, visualizing a blood-covered crab crawling out of one of his possible murder victim’s genitals, and commenting afterward, “I fancy a dish of eel.” Indeed, Nagasako looks like a man about to rip the next woman open with his teeth before sucking the marrow out, and this objectification with death eventually extends to Nagasako, whose bones he asks for upon his expiration. Will Aochi be able to extricate himself from this decorum-defying pact with a deranged man, or is a bargain a bargain? Known for what some scholars cited as a “sick sense of humor,” Suzuki offers the ultimate comeuppance for a world in which no one believes in anything: proof that something beyond these shores exists, but that it’s equally obsessed with its own enjoyment. That’s what I got out of it, at least.

Overall rating: **** (out of ****)

THE UNBEARABLE LIGHTNESS OF BEING (1988), dir. Philip Kaufman

SITE ARCHIVE! (REGULARLY UPDATED)

A brilliant doctor with a thirst for women; the sincere ingénue who becomes his wife; the doctor’s lover, who understands the thrill of being both pursuer and pursued: these three make up the love triangle in Philip Kaufman’s “The Unbearable Lightness of Being.” Often revered as one of most erotic movies ever made, there’s more to it than just the cool mechanics of sex. Like the Milan Kundera novel it’s based on, the film is set in Czechoslovakia during a time of great political upheaval, and seems to understand how sex is connected to a whole gamut of emotions, all of which can be affected by an event as dramatic as displacement.

Daniel Day-Lewis plays Tomas, who starts off the “lightest” of the central protagonists, concerned for little besides his next conquest. Everything changes, however, during a trip to the country to perform a routine operation, whereupon he encounters Tereza (Juliette Binoche) and immediately becomes smitten with her. The feeling is mutual, but they share a strange interaction at first: he wants sex, while she seems to be looking for friendship and romance. The gulf between them could not be better illustrated than when Tereza tells Tomas that she gets off work at six. “Oh, but I have a plane to catch back to Prague,” he replies, a sly, wolfish look on his face. Tereza, who seems to miss the point completely, only registers disappointment.

Yet their separation is short-lived, and soon enough, the young girl has followed the doctor back home, where the relationship is consummated (for her, it appears to be her first time). Afterward, even Tomas seems taken aback by how strongly Tereza clings to him, but refuses to give up his routine of casual encounters, which include sex with Sabina (Lena Olin), a free-spirited artist who understands his nature better than anyone. It’s never clear just how offended Sabina is by this new woman’s presence in Tomas’ life, whether she secretly had hoped their trysts would lead to something more substantial, but that doesn’t stop her from judging Tomas; at one point, she ponders his face in front of Tereza and asks aloud, “What makes him a scoundrel?”

For her part, Tereza seems to detect there is more to Tomas and Sabina’s relationship than meets the eye. Meanwhile, her relationship with the latter is friendly, but not necessarily friendship, although Sabina does help her develop into a skilled photographer. Always more politically-inclined than her beau, Tereza gets a job at a newspaper, and snaps pictures from the front line when the Soviets invade. When that endangers her life, she and Tomas flee to nearby Switzerland, whereupon the profound differences in their nature start becoming clear: she feels everything too deeply, while emotionally, he floats by on a cushion of air.

The main thrust of the movie involves how these characters grow and change as their lives endure one upheaval after another. The genius of Kaufman and screenwriter Jean-Claude Carriere’s adaptation, however, is in the way the protagonists’ relationships with one another, not to mention their overall attitudes about love and sex, are shown to be interconnected with their politics. Tereza, for example, embraces her home with Tomas and her homeland with equal passion, which leads to disillusionment on all fronts: in Switzerland, she discovers the world’s attention span regarding Czechoslovakia’s invasion has already been exhausted; none of the newspapers will buy her pictures, but an editor does suggest she start taking nude photographs for the fashion section.

With no other job prospects, Tereza looks up Sabina to use as a model, the latter having relocated to Switzerland as well. As she starts taking photographs of her, Tereza, examining the body of her husband’s lover, starts to break down. One gets the feeling she is looking at Sabina and thinking, “How can Tomas trade me for this other woman so freely?” which is not all that different from the question she faces in her work: “How can anyone trade in one passion for another?”

As for Sabina, she, along with acting as another face for the Czech Diaspora, serves to reflect both Tomas’ and Tereza’s qualities back at them (indeed, there is a recurring use of mirrors in shots featuring her). When together with the former, she expresses lust and carnality: at one point, she and Day-Lewis appear in a mirror as a beast with two backs. But like Tereza, her attitude towards love, sex, and life itself seem at least partially informed by her status as a refugee. Later, having no place to call “home” anymore, she thinks nothing of being equally rootless with her sex life, moving from man to man, city to city, especially when her latest beau becomes too serious.

Tomas, on the other hand, subscribes to a moral and political philosophy best summed up as “hands off.” He couldn’t care less about the state of his homeland’s government; he says as much when an article he wrote criticizing the country’s past leaders gets him blacklisted from practicing medicine. A government official tries to convince him to sign a retraction, but he won’t do it, for reasons the bureaucrat cannot understand. Yet the viewer does: although Tomas does not necessarily care who is in power, he wants the freedom to live as he pleases, which includes being able to toss off incendiary letters without reprisal. Likewise, he wants hedonism minus the chains of matrimony, sex whenever the opportunity presents itself, without having to explain or involve Tereza. At one point, she even begs him to bring her to the other women, to let her watch as he makes love to them, but he refuses. To pursue something with absolute freedom, after all, means pursuing it alone.

So what is the solution for the unhappy couple? According to the filmmakers (and we assume, Kundera himself), it is living life simpler, trading urban gray for pastoral green, big city anonymity for community, wealth for subsistence. When survival depends on the fecundity of the land and the sweat of the brow, emotions like jealousy become small and insignificant. Although one might argue such an ending to be tragic, an example of great talent being crushed by the Communist machine, the film itself never seems to argue that anything is lost, but rather, that a different kind of happiness is ultimately gained, one in which deep emotional bonds replace featherweight sex, where one’s being is neither an unbearable or light thing to anybody.

Overall rating: **** (out of ****)

ROPE (1948), dir. Alfred Hitchcock

Another Hitchcock film, another nefarious act taken place in seemingly-mundane surroundings: this time, a pair of upper-crust, New York City-types murder their friend in their own apartment, hide the body in a large trunk, and in a sick twist, host a dinner afterward using the trunk as a serving table.

Why commit such an appalling deed in the first place? According to Brandon (John Dall), murder should be reserved for the intellectually and culturally-superior. Given his and fellow perpetrator Philip’s (Farley Granger) refinements – as opposed to their victim’s, who had been an underachieving heir – the act itself was justified. Meanwhile, since they are so smart themselves, they should be able to get away with the crime, even if the trunk has a broken lock making it easy to open.

“Rope” was released in 1948; I don’t know if the source material, a play by Patrick Hamilton, had been a reaction to the mass killings of Jews by the Nazis, but the movie’s message does seem like an appropriate response to the Holocaust. As Brandon and Philip’s former prep school teacher, a character played by James Stewart, asks them, “Did you think you were God?” Do mental, financial, or cultural advantages entitle anyone to deprive another of the right to live and be happy?

Along with being relevant for its time, “Rope” is worth watching just as an exercise in style, as Hitchcock manages to take a screenplay restricted to a single set and wring plenty of tension out of it. Beginning with the murder, moving forward to the dinner party, and ending with Stewart’s detective-like turn, the filmmakers forgo much editing, which makes the movie feel like it’s progressing in real time. Indeed, despite the 80-minute running time, I only counted a handful of clear cuts; otherwise, the camera tracks restlessly around and between rooms in the apartment, and between the foreground and background to keep the experience from stagnating.

By shooting in what seems more or less like real time, however, Hitchcock does the opposite of boring the audience: he raises the tension. Indeed, during the dinner party itself, the camera circulates like another guest, observing the others – a list that includes the victim’s parents, some mutual friends, and the aforementioned former school teacher, who once espoused the same theory that inspired his ex-charges to murder – as they grow increasingly agitated waiting for the heir to arrive, and at not knowing exactly what the dinner party is commemorating. The viewer spends enough time around these characters that their emotional changes feel genuine, from the deceased’s girlfriend’s growing strain at being confronted by an ex-beau, the parents’ mounting worry, Stewart’s character’s growing suspicions, and one of the murderer’s slowly cracking under the strain of guilt.

Hitchcock also throws in a few great camera flourishes, including one shot that uses both foreground and background in tandem: Mrs. Wilson, the housekeeper, walks back-and-forth between the kitchen located at the back of the frame and the serving table at the front. The viewer is invited to watch as she slowly clears away candelabras, silverware, and other items, teased by the knowledge that, once she has finished with those, she’ll put the plates in the trunk, where unbeknownst to her the body is hidden.

Another notable moment is when the camera switches from third-person to first-person, reflecting James Stewart’s perspective as he imagines what Brandon and Philip did with the corpse. In a neat twist that not enough modern directors try, he doesn’t say exactly what he is thinking, not being sure what his former students are capable of, and because he’d rather give the murderers enough of the titular item to hang themselves with. In fact, the ending reinforces the notion a guilty conscience wants to be found out, which may have nothing to do with how intellectually or culturally well-bred one is.

Overall rating: **** (out of ****)

BUFFALO BILL AND THE INDIANS, OR SITTING BULL’S HISTORY LESSON (1976), dir. Robert Altman

It is said the great ones make what they do look easy. Yet here is a movie about two legendary men of their time – one a white cowboy, the other a Native American chief – in which the saying only seems half true. “Buffalo Bill” shows the hard work that its main character, William Cody, goes through to maintain his image as the archetypal frontiersman, as well as the frustrations this would-be master of animals and killer of Injuns experiences with Sitting Bull, who conjures a near-mystical aura through hardly any labor at all.

There really was a “Buffalo Bill” Cody, a former soldier and Pony Express rider who later starred in the most popular traveling show in the world. Wild West-themed, it featured a variety of skilled performers who did gun tricks and performed stunts on horseback, as well as actors who re-enacted events such as General Custer’s last stand, in which Cody himself appeared as the doomed general. The movie picks up during the troupe’s heyday, around the same time as what ostensibly appears to be a show business coup: the signing on of Sitting Bull, the former Sioux leader.

Federal marshals begrudgingly deliver the chief to Cody and his handlers, who already envision him appearing in a re-enactment of the Battle of the Little Bighorn. But Sitting Bull, who joined Buffalo Bill’s Wild West because of a vision telling him he would meet President Grover Cleveland, refuses to participate in their version of the event, in which Custer’s men would be shown massacred. Instead, he demands the re-enactment show the Native Americans being slaughtered, a suggestion Cody flat-out refuses. The show considers firing Sitting Bull, but when a key cast member threatens to walk out as well, Cody capitulates; nevertheless, the incident spurs a battle of wills between the two legends that lasts the entire movie.

“Buffalo Bill” was directed by Robert Altman, and like many of that filmmaker’s works, it’s so many things in one: an ensemble film, a drama with comedic elements, a behind-the-scenes look at a particular corner of show business. But there’s also something edgy and modern about Altman and Alan Rudolph’s screenplay, and one’s appreciation of the overall movie will likely depend on taking to their vision. To them, William Cody – who was a big star before the age of television – is like some kind of 70’s show business icon: handsome and larger-than-life in person (if slightly shorter than one might have expected, thanks to Paul Newman’s perfect casting), but vain, alcoholic, prima donna-ish and a womanizer in private.

I liked everything about this movie, especially how Cody shows an obsession with the public’s perception of “Buffalo Bill” on-par with a modern PR firm. In one of the film’s more humorous moments, he welcomes President Grover Cleveland, who is on his honeymoon, to his own self-titled ranch and resort, allowing the chief executive the use of his own bedroom. When Cleveland expresses an unwillingness to put him out, Buffalo Bill assures him he prefers to spend his nights outdoors among the plains; but of course, the first place he goes is that symbol of civilization: the tavern.

Altman, of course, was no stranger to de-mythologizing the Wild West when he made “Buffalo Bill,” having done something similar in 1971’s “McCabe & Mrs. Miller.” This time around, it’s more the Wild West show he’s dissecting, his roving camera capturing a cavalcade of characters wearing ten gallon hats, only much of it is illusion: the Native Americans are played by black or white actors for the most part; during the brilliant opening sequence, an attack on a frontier town by Indians turns out to be staged; at one point, an actor is told not to get on his horse from behind, for fear it does not look “authentic.” In the spirit of a film that takes viewers “behind the scenes,” “Buffalo Bill” also shows how much intricate choreography, micro-management, and practice went into the acts.

Even the titular character’s ride into each show accompanied by a small herd of bison is far from spontaneous. But if Buffalo Bill is indeed an image whose purpose is preserving the Wild West in its most idyllic form (and that argument is supported by what amounts to a creator, played by Burt Lancaster), the question in William Cody’s mind is whether the same can be said of Sitting Bull (Frank Kaquitts)? Here is another character with a larger-than-life reputation, but when depicted in the flesh, is short in stature, ghostly-silent, with a child-like face.

He packs none of Buffalo Bill’s bluster, but his resourcefulness clearly exceeds that of the cowboy performers. Later, he manages to win over a white audience through his own quiet dignity and grace – without having to participate in the dog-and-pony show the writers initially conceived – and when he mysteriously disappears, also manages to evade the search party led by Cody, despite his reputation of being a world-class Indian tracker.

“He has to look good in front of his people,” is Buffalo Bill’s response to Sitting Bull making a fool of him. But is Sitting Bull a legend, or, like Buffalo Bill, just a man perpetuating a legend? The answer is never clear, but by film’s end Cody, who has started to become aware of his deficiencies, comes to the decision it is better to be a has-been and know it because the alternative is ending up like Sitting Bull (whose fate I will not disclose here). "My God, look at ya! Look at ya!” he shouts. “You want to stay the same! Well, that's going backwards!" Buffalo Bill, on the contrary, continues looking forward, even if his gaze seems blank, and the rest of his image resembles an outdated relic getting older with each passing moment.

Overall rating: **** (out of ****)

SITE ARCHIVE! (REGULARLY UPDATED)

FELLINI – SATYRICON (1969), dir. Federico Fellini

Here is ancient Rome envisioned by someone with a fever in his brain, and as it happens, Fellini was recovering from a serious illness when he picked up Petronius’ novel Satyricon, and found the inspiration for this depraved, fantastic film.

It should be noted the original novel only exists in pieces. Rather than try and rebuild it, Fellini left the narrative gaps in, and as a result, “Fellini – Satyricon” has a disconnected, dreamlike quality. It is effective nonetheless: we are haunted by its images and sounds; a hollow chime, which reappears throughout the movie, will heretofore be implanted upon the brain. But ask how various scenes of visual opulence are connected, and I could not tell you. As best I can figure, the plot involves two young Romans (Martin Potter, Hiram Keller) who may be scholars or artists, vying for the affections of a younger, androgynous-looking boy (Max Born).

These characters not so much travel as are magically shunted to various locales: a lavish bacchanalia, a galley ship full of captured slaves, into the desert helping kidnap an albino prophet, and face-to-face with the legendary Minotaur. Some amazing costumes are provided by Danilo Donati (who collaborated with Fellini numerous times), and production designer Luigi Scaccianoce’s sets include a building that resembles the Guggenheim Museum crossed with Dante’s Circles of Hell.

Meanwhile, Fellini and cinematographer Giuseppe Rotunno try to fit as many garish colors, layers of detail, and strangely-shaped faces and bodies into the frame as possible. Entire background shots are crammed full of people, and at certain times, they are coordinated with a precision that seems mind-boggling. Luckily, the filmmakers also provide a few stark, intriguing moments to keep the feeling of being fatally-overstuffed at bay: panoramic shots of deserts and coasts, the two male leads cavorting with an exotic woman they find inside a cave.

Like many Fellini movies, an earthiness balances out the beauty, but we are not just talking griminess. Characters shout at one another, belch, and lust in such a way that reflects their vigor for living. However, despite how fantastic the whole production is, there is great darkness here, too, as “Fellini – Satyricon” shows the dangers of excess, and explores man’s potential for limitless appetite.

The most powerful and successful secondary characters are depicted as willing to cross what viewers might consider ethical boundaries for art and experience sake: a great actor cuts off somebody’s hand as part of his stage act; a famous poet drinks himself stupid, carries on with a young boy in front of his wife, and has another guest beaten; the emperor himself, who remains unseen, orders boats to sail forth acquiring slaves for his pleasure.

Granted, laws existed in the ancient world, and the historical accuracy of “Fellini – Satyricon” could probably be debated, but the underlying question is a universal one: Can we live our lives solely for seeking pleasure? The movie dramatizes this question by involving the two main protagonists in what is essentially a pointless second half, carried along by exterior forces, greed, or lust. Naturally, when one develops sexual dysfunction, the quest for a cure becomes all-consuming (and leads to that whole fighting the Minotaur-thing – in a labyrinth, no less!). Fellini does tend to reflect his own insecurities in his art, and the theme of male potency reappears in his “City of Women” more than a decade later, but if anything, that only proves the universality of the earlier question.

I am not saying everyone will love this movie. You might argue it’s nothing more than the director indulging his subconscious through a parade of pretty trash, followed by sexually-charged nonsense. My response is: that’s all accurate, but that’s also the whole point.

Overall rating: **** (out of ****)

Please visit the archive for a full list of reviews.

THE DARK KNIGHT (2008), dir. Christopher Nolan

When Tim Burton’s 1989 “Batman” first came out, audiences were warned: “This isn’t your parents’ Batman,” referring to the campy Adam West television version from the 60’s. Having seen “The Dark Knight,” I think it would be safe to tell fans of Burton’s film the same thing: this isn’t their Batman, but one that’s a lot less gothic, a lot more psychological, and even more violent.

What Christopher Nolan’s movie lacks in production design, it makes up for through intensity. This is one hell of a suspense vehicle, ratcheting up the tension at regular intervals, letting audiences go for a moment, then improbably, raising the stakes even higher. It’s a roller coaster ride that could have been exhausting over the film’s two-hour-plus running time, but thanks to Nolan and co-scripter David Goyer’s emphasis on characters and their relationships, all the plot developments have emotional resonance.

“The Dark Knight” picks up near where “Batman Begins” left off: billionaire heir Bruce Wayne (Christian Bale) is still the self-appointed guardian of Gotham City, slowly chipping away at the criminal underworld through his alter-ego Batman. His only friend on the police force remains Lieutenant Jim Gordon (Gary Oldman); in the District Attorney’s office, it’s Rachel Dawes (Maggie Gyllenhaal, replacing Katie Holmes), his childhood sweetheart who learned his secret identity in the last movie.

A love triangle brews between Wayne, Dawes, and recently-elected District Attorney Harvey Dent (Aaron Eckhart), who seems sincere about crushing criminals and settling down with Bruce’s old flame. But with all due respect to the romantic aspects of the screenplay, the relationship at the heart of this film is that between Dent, Gordon, and Batman, who hatch a plan together to nail the mob on money laundering charges. Naturally, the first meeting of this crime-fighting trio brims with hope and optimism; unfortunately, things don't go as planned, and the next time they’re all together, it’s to reflect on the toll they’ve suffered in the name of the good fight.

Good and evil seem to be at war in “The Dark Knight,” but maybe it’s more like chaos and order. The main villain is a war paint-wearing, facially-scarred, mentally-off-balanced madman who calls himself the Joker (the late Heath Ledger), a self-described “agent of chaos” for whom there’s no applecart he won’t upset or shove through a sharp object, eye socket first. The filmmakers wisely adhere to his comics’ origin and withhold explaining how he got the way he does. Chaos, after all, needs no motivation; as one character wisely explains, “Some men just want to watch the world burn.”

By contrast, Dent not only represents “law and order,” his life appears built on the idea human will can successfully impose itself on chaos. Even when we think he’s starting to slip up, he’s in total control, “making his own luck,” as he says, seemingly confident of determining his own fate. However, one of the movie’s recurring themes is how short a jump there is between two halves of the same coin: order and chaos, hero and villain, and ultimately, life and death. When order meets chaos head-to-head, the movie argues, even the best of us can lose our way or become walking contradictions -- “two-faced” people.

In some ways, Nolan is a “two-face” himself, dressing up a summer blockbuster into something artier and genuinely disquieting at times. “The Dark Knight” probably features a higher body count than half-a-dozen serial killer movies combined, but despite lots of action sequences, it’s practically anti-violence due to presentation: during particular stretches of carnage, Nolan either cuts off the background music entirely or reduces it to a single, extended note, which somehow makes everything just a little too involving. When there’s nothing distracting you from the sight of the Joker walking down the street, firing a machine gun at anything that moves, that’s when the movie really pulls you out of your orderly viewing experience and puts you in a stranglehold.

Updated 8/3/08: Following the movie’s release, there were numerous articles regarding its supposed politics, with writers claiming references to the Iraq War, suicide bombers, and the Patriot Act. I can kind of see it: in theory, the triumvirate of Batman, Dent, and Lt. Gordon are standing in for the current administration, finding themselves dealing with a firestorm of reprisal after entering a foreign land in the name of justice. Gotham City becomes the battleground, but the problem is enemy soldiers are able to hide themselves in plain sight; for example, the Joker himself – minus his trademark make-up, of course – blends in with a procession of cops during an assassination attempt.

Meanwhile, is that “shock and awe” echoing in Alfred Pennyworth’s (Michael Caine) tale to Bruce Wayne about his past army days, how his unit managed to catch a madman among the natives, only by burning down an entire forest in which he lived? In order to avoid the same, Batman plans to spy on the cell phone calls of Gotham City’s citizenry using a hi-tech computer. One can practically hear him blubbering to Morgan Freeman how this potential breach of civil liberties is, “the only way to stop terror,” in a Texas accent.

The funny thing is the filmmakers seem okay with this encroachment, so long as the ends justify the means (a psycho gets brought down, innocent lives are saved), and there is no abuse of this power. And despite the temptation to keep around such an elaborate spying network – imagine how much easier it would make fighting crime – we assume Batman realizes the ethical implications of such a thing. At the very least, it would reveal a pessimistic view of human nature to rival the Joker and his other enemies. But although we can trust Batman not to abuse such invasive technology, the question the whole subplot seems to raise is: do we feel the same way about the current administration, or does the Dark Knight really symbolize something we don’t have, and are in need of?

Overall rating: **** (out of ****)

Please visit the archive for a full list of reviews.

THE CASTLE OF CAGLIOSTRO (1979), dir. Hayao Miyazaki

“The Castle of Cagliostro” proves you don’t need flesh-and-blood actors or real locales to stage an exceptional action adventure. Cartoons can do the job just nicely, so long as the writing is smart and the animators are talented.

The movie stars Lupin the Third, a thief descended from Arsene Lupin, the main character of French author Maurice Leblanc. Although he’s a master criminal, he possesses gentlemanly qualities and gadgets a la James Bond, and he’s also remarkably agile, as evidenced by the opening sequence in which he and his sidekick steal a fortune from a casino safe.

But as Lupin quickly recognizes, the bills are counterfeit, which leads them to take a trip to Cagliostro, where the secret of all the forged money is reputed to be. There, they encounter a young woman named Clarisse, who is trying to escape an arranged marriage to a nefarious count. During the rescue, Lupin recognizes the crest on the ring she is wearing, and it’s possible they share a deeper connection.

What follows are breakneck chases, daring escapes, puzzles, even a touch of comedy as an Interpol agent tracks the thief to the count’s castle. It’s interesting to watch “The Castle of Cagliostro” nearly 20 years after it was first released, given that it’s in the action adventure genre, which has been dominated since the 80’s by the twin pillars of James Bond and Indiana Jones.

Of course, Miyazaki’s film came out a few years before “Raiders of the Lost Ark,” and Lupin is refreshingly free of Dr. Henry Jones’s influence. He’s less of a brawler, more of a lady’s man, and even though the action in “Raiders” is occasionally like a cartoon, Indiana Jones is always flesh and blood. Not so with Lupin, who can scale walls like Spider-man, and at one point drives a car along the side of a mountain.

Ian Fleming’s Bond, however, has been around since the 50’s, and some of his movies’ influence can be found in “Castle;” chiefly, the villain’s hideout equipped with hi-tech traps. Meanwhile, like any serialized adventure, there is a pre-established cast of supporting characters, including a rival female spy, a sidekick who’s good with a sword, and that aforementioned Interpol agent, who is no dummy but unfortunately finds himself always one step behind his prey.

The art is top-notch for pre-CGI days, but it’s Miyazaki who elevates the entire enterprise to masterpiece levels. Known internationally for epics like “Princess Mononoke” and “Nausicaa,” he co-wrote the screenplay with Harauya Yamazaki, and it’s a very clever one, especially in the various subterfuges Lupin uses.

True, “Castle” may be less serious than Miyazaki’s later efforts, but unlike a lot of modern animated films which seem to be marketed towards young children, this one is free of dumb jokes and all the characters act like they have a brain in their heads. It’s as if Miyazaki set out to entertain grown-ups as well as the young, and as such, Lupin’s motivations are unexpectedly complex and the ending is surprisingly touching.

Overall rating: **** (out of ****)

MCCABE & MRS. MILLER (1971), dir. Robert Altman

“Glamorous” is the last adjective anyone would use to describe “McCabe & Mrs. Miller,” which sets out to show how brutal life was in the North American frontier. Directed by the great Robert Altman, it overturns a lot of conventions of the Western genre, depicting a world devoid of nobility, love, and ultimately, heroic ideals.

The plot involves a man named John McCabe (Warren Beatty), who sets out building his fortune in Presbyterian Church, a burgeoning town located in northern Canada. The main industry there is zinc mines, and the town is seemingly devoid of women. McCabe, whose dream is to start up a gambling house, purchases some prostitutes, but is woefully unprepared for some of the realities of the business.

Enter Constance Miller (Julie Christie), who seems as smart and cultured as John McCabe is not. She has an idea about opening a high-class whorehouse in place of what he already has set up. Such a place, she argues, would draw customers from beyond Presbyterian Church and double his money. All she needs is an investor who will let her run it. “I’m a whore, and I know a lot about the business of whoring.”

Mrs. Miller, however, is a serious businesswoman, while McCabe is the gambler by trade. This leads to conflict after the new brothel and bathhouse are built, when some men from a large corporation look to buy them out of their holdings. Believing he can wheel and deal with the best of them, McCabe turns down their price, which later infuriates and worries Mrs. Miller. “They’d just as soon shoot you as look at you,” she warns him.

Indeed, three assassins soon arrive under the auspices of hunting bear, and begin a reign of terror against the two entrepreneurs. A gunfight – notable for both its brilliant staging as well as overall ugliness – ensues: there’s no showdown out in the open, but on the contrary, participants hide in the shadows, have no qualms about shooting somebody in the back, and die messy deaths amidst desolate and snowy backdrops.

“McCabe & Mrs. Miller” is not exactly the kind of western Hollywood produced during its Golden Age. The differences start with the actors: Beatty, despite having leading man looks, conveys none of the moral fortitude of a John Wayne-type hero. He doesn’t resemble a villain either, more a supporting cast member – some dandyish-looking, grumbling, frequently drunk supporting cast member who should be providing comic relief with a seemingly-endless supply of bawdy jokes.

There’s also an unsubstantiated rumor McCabe was a gunfighter who killed a man named Bill Roundtree. He never acknowledges this, and when trouble is actually looking for him, McCabe seems awfully hesitant and full of trepidation for someone who once took another person’s life.

While the movie busies itself tearing down a legend, it also paints a grim picture of women in the wilderness: removed from creature comforts; stared at by lustful, desperate male eyes. Mrs. Miller provides some sanctuary, but the movie does not shy away from how isolation affects her as well. If McCabe has his liquor, she has her own vices, too. They’re just more exotic ones.

Julie Christie gets Mrs. Miller perfectly, conveying glamour as well as the requisite emotional detachment. She may not pack McCabe’s bluster, but she’s a better businessperson, as evidenced by a terrific scene in which she’s both motherly and rational in selling a recently-widowed mail order bride (Shelley Duvall) on prostitution. When she was married, having sex was a means of paying for her room and board. It’s no different now, except she gets to keep a little extra for herself, Mrs. Miller argues.

Overall, the relationship between herself and McCabe is a complicated one, and this is very much a movie where the opposite of what would happen in a traditional western takes place. That’s especially clear in their romance or lack of one, although McCabe does get to utter something borderline tender: “I never did nothing to you except try to put a smile on your face,” he says.

Mrs. Miller, on the other hand, only seems to thaw in one scene where she urges him to get out of town after outside forces threaten. She turns away and starts crying, and we expect her to reveal how she cares deep-down about her boorish business partner. But it turns out she’s really worried about losing the future profits from their partnership.

That may seem all too cool and cynical for some, but Altman, who also adapted the screenplay from a novel by Edmund Naughton, was known for his modern sensibility, and “McCabe & Mrs. Miller” ranks among his best work of the 70’s. Given the widespread distrust of the establishment during the decade, it probably made sense for major corporations to be the main villains. However, there’s also a darkly-humorous scene with intimations about what big liars politicians are.

McCabe seeks help from a lawyer (William Devane) who just happened to have been a governor. The man talks about using newspapers to affect public opinion, but offers no real assistance on how not to get killed. It’s funny, the kind of thing you’d read in “Doonesbury,” but you get the feeling this is exactly what Old West legends really were: ordinary, flawed individuals touted as heroes, when all they really did was gamble and lose.

Overall rating: **** (out of ****)

THE FOUNTAIN (2006), dir. Darren Aronofsky

Drubbed by a lot of critics when it first came out, it’s possible to see why “The Fountain” has mostly been forgotten. Given the premise, the quest for a way to defy death, as well as the titular reference to the fabled Fountain of Youth, one expects high adventure in the “Raiders of the Lost Ark” mold. But although the film’s canvas is vast and there are a few scenes involving swordplay, this is a highly-personal drama built mostly around two characters.

Still, there’s plenty to appreciate about “The Fountain,” starting with the craftsmanship of Aronofsky, who also wrote the screenplay. It’s his third film overall, and the follow-up to his critically-acclaimed “Requiem for a Dream,” in which the legendary Ellen Burstyn – who has a small role here as well – crawled through grimy subway stations under the influence of diet pills.

As in “Requiem,” which made drug addiction seem scorching and personal, Aronofky takes a potential epic and presents it in a surprisingly intimate style. Most of the film consists of first-person point-of-view shots from the perspective of his two leads, Hugh Jackman and Rachel Weisz. Despite the presence of a few ancillary characters, they are clearly the focus, even as the film crisscrosses between the Spanish Empire, the modern world, and the celestial heavens.

In one of the three storylines, Jackman and Weisz play a couple named Tommy and Izzy Creo, respectively, and their performances ground the film emotionally. We care about their love story, which faces one of the most familiar obstacles in the history of romance: coming to terms with one partner’s death. But “The Fountain” has its heart in the stars, and Aronofsky, who previously showed a gift as a visual poet, finds the eternal within the ordinary: endless waves in a wallpaper pattern; streetlights extending into the distance.

One of the best set-ups involves a dark room with small, hanging lanterns resembling stars, making it appear as if Jackman takes a walk through constellations. There are also quite a few camera shots looking down on people’s heads, which makes sense in the context of the film, since characters are constantly looking into the faraway distances, both for and at the answer to their questions.

I’ve spent the last few paragraphs noting the aesthetics in “The Fountain” and trying not to give away much more. Truly, this is a movie to be experienced, but has a message that can be understood by nearly everyone. However, if you’ve ever read Mary Shelly’s “Frankenstein,” there will be a shudder of recognition when one character, who is a doctor, says, “Death is a disease, it's like any other. And there is a cure. A cure. And I will find it.”

Things don’t end quite the way “Frankenstein” did, although there is one special effects scene in which Aronofsky, in keeping with his reputation as an innovator, successfully meshes the lush, beautiful, and grotesque. Now I really won’t say more except “The Fountain” will likely anger and frustrate some, while others will find themselves moved, maybe even more appreciate of life and what they have.

Overall rating: **** (out of ****)

AMERICAN GANGSTER (2007), dir. Ridley Scott

Frank Lucas (Denzel Washington) started out as the driver and doorman for Harlem mobster Ellsworth “Bumpy” Johnson, and ended up top man of New York City’s lucrative heroin industry. But “American Gangster,” which is set in the 70’s, is an American success story as much as a mob flick. Lucas gets where he does by innovating in a cutthroat business; his just happens to be in narcotics.

When the movie starts off, Frank is having a conversation with his mentor, who bemoans how the middleman has been cut out from the retail sector. Ironically, shortly after “Bumpy” passes away, Lucas will build an empire doing just that: buying directly from the supplier. Thanks to a connection in Thailand, he gets his hands on pure-grade heroin, which is far more potent than the watered-down smack being sold by the Italian mob. Soon, Frank has a stranglehold on the industry, but that doesn’t stop wannabe middlemen (led by Josh Brolin’s dirty cop) from demanding a cut before the product reaches consumers.

Plenty of business-related terms and phrases are bandied about in “American Gangster.” Lucas’ heroin, labeled “Blue Magic,” comes in a distinctive package, and when a rival hoodlum cuts it down to re-sell, leading to some overdoses, Frank accuses him of “copyright infringement.” In another scene, an Italian mobster disapproves of Frank’s monopoly on the trade, comparing it to other regulated industries. Finally, Lucas makes a fortune selling a better product for less than the competition, which is how countless American companies in other industries made their mark.

Frank even indulges in the American tradition of nepotism, moving his brothers and cousins from North Carolina to Harlem. This has mixed results, but the familial bonds allow sit-down meals to be conducted like boardroom meetings, even though Frank has to occasionally steal away to kill other gangsters in cold blood.

The movie also spends roughly half its running time with Richie Roberts (Russell Crowe), a New York detective so honest, he turns in one million dollars in unmarked bills discovered during a bust. This makes him an urban legend, but a pariah among the NYPD’s mostly corrupt narcotics officers. “If a cop turns in this kind of money, it sends a message he’s willing to turn in dirty cops,” his partner (John Ortiz) warns him.

Initially, Roberts’ personal life is spiraling downward as Lucas steadily climbs to power. On the one hand, it illustrates the two characters’ contrasting natures: Lucas may be a drug dealer, but he’s also a devoted family man who buys his mother a mansion as soon as he hits the big time. Roberts, meanwhile, cheats on his wife, has to go to court to fight for his son, is being disassociated by both his precinct and partner, and even has old buddies working in organized crime.

But personal morals and business scruples do not necessarily go hand-in-hand, and both men, the movie seems to argue, are rebelling against the same thing: the mafia and police who aid and abet the drug trade so they can shake it down for cash. In other words, the status quo that heretofore made lots of money for those atop the pyramid. Roberts’ pursuit of Lucas culminates in a face-to-face meeting between the two characters as well as mutual respect that feels genuine.

Overall, “American Gangster” is a well-made film, with the period details one expects from director Ridley Scott. The story takes place during the same time period as another famous New York City crime film, "The French Connection", but there’s less emphasis on action and more on character development. Steve Zaillian’s screenplay also makes an interesting comment on race, since even Detective Roberts takes a long time to be convinced a black man could rule the heroin trade. It’s exactly these kinds of innovations that make the movie succeed as a crime film, a drama, and maybe something a little more, too.

Overall rating: **** (out of ****)

THE DIVING BELL AND THE BUTTERFLY (2007), dir. Julian Schnabel

Here is a movie that intrigues on multiple levels: as a latter day biopic of Jean-Dominique Bauby, one-time editor of French Elle magazine; as a first-person narrative told from the perspective of an individual who has suffered a seriously-debilitating injury; and finally, as a kind of medical case study on the rehabilitation of someone who has lost most of their physical faculties.

But either way, “The Diving Bell and the Butterfly” ranks among the best films of 2007, thanks to terrific performances and the directorial vision of Julian Schnabel. Screenwriter Ronald Harwood also deserves credit for adapting Bauby’s seemingly impossible-to-film memoir for the screen, and for fashioning a storytelling device effectively simulating his extraordinary condition.

In 1995, the famous, well-off, seemingly-healthy Bauby suffered a massive stroke which left his body completely paralyzed save for his left eyelid. Awakening from a coma at a hospital in Berck, France, he experiences the shock and terror of not being able to communicate with anyone. Initially, he rejects visits from his children and goes through a period of self-pity in which he requests death. But thanks to the presence of caring therapists and friends, who remind him not to let go of his humanity despite what happened, Bauby not only regains a healthy outlook on life, but composes his bestselling memoir through blinking.

Although there are plenty of movies about overcoming difficult odds, it is hard to think of one more inspiring than “The Diving Bell and the Butterfly.” It probably helps that Bauby’s condition is relatively easy to sympathize with. However, Schnabel also cast the right actor in the role, as Mathieu Amalric handles both the physical difficulties of playing someone afflicted with “Locked-In syndrome,” and exudes the requisite love of life as the pre-stroke Bauby.

Depth is absolutely integral to this character, as he is never supposed to be a saint, but a man whose key relationships in life – to his former wife, current lover, and father – were complicated before the injury and remain so afterward. As the friends and loved ones who must come to terms with Bauby’s condition, the European cast assembled by Schnabel does fine work, especially Emmanuelle Seigner as the woman Bauby ditched, who still loves him, but understandably, holds a grudge.

Meanwhile, Marie-Jozee Croze and Anne Alvaro play the appropriately angelic speech and physical therapists, respectively. They guide our handicapped protagonist away from darkness without being too preachy about it.

As previously stated, the memoir “The Diving Bell and the Butterfly” is said to have been difficult to adapt, mainly because so much takes place from a restricted person’s point of view. Both Harwood and Schnabel devised solutions to this problem, one of which involved letting the camera simulate Bauby’s lone working eye. As a result, there are lots of jump cuts and quick edits which emulate the eye’s capacity for rapid movement.

In addition, as the movie progresses, there are lengthy flashbacks as well as segues into Bauby’s imagination. These shifts keep the story from being monotonous to the viewer as well as reflect how the character retreats into his mind.

Finally, the film should intrigue anyone who has ever been curious of how medical professionals treat speech and communication disorders. Granted, the movie takes place in France, where medicine is socialized, and one wonders if the American health care system could provide similarly great care to someone not as wealthy as Jean-Dominique Bauby. But the point is he got the help he needed, and without the doctors and clinicians involved, there may never have been “The Diving Bell and the Butterfly.” That would have been a tragedy.

Overall rating: **** (out of ****)

THRONE OF BLOOD (1957), dir. Akira Kurosawa

I’m actually not very familiar with the films of Akira Kurosawa, but I enjoyed “Throne of Blood,” which is basically “Macbeth” transplanted to feudal Japan. The plot revolves around two great warriors who are told their fortunes by a forest spirit: one of them, Washizu, is destined to become lord of “Spider Web Castle,” a mighty fortress (and the Japanese name of the movie). This is also the destiny of the other man’s son.

Anyone who knows “Macbeth” can figure out the trajectory of “Throne of Blood,” even if there’s very little of Shakespeare’s dialogue. Expect ambition, betrayal, paranoia, more betrayal, madness, revenge, and a Lady Macbeth-type character who eggs her husband on to commit terrible deeds, but isn’t afraid to get her own hands dirty, too. A Macduff equivalent is nowhere to be found, but the forest spirit does tell the main character he won’t die until the “very trees rise up against him.”

Like I said, I’m not especially familiar with the director, and this is the first Kurosawa film from the 50’s I’ve seen. But judged on its own merits, I can say the best features of “Throne of Blood” are its eerie atmosphere and performances by a strong cast. Supposedly, Kurosawa was influenced by Japanese Noh Theatre: there is a chorus, as well as scenes of disquieting silence, broken by brief outbursts of drum and flute.

As in Noh, you also have the magical spirit wearing a mask and expressing its emotions through the positioning of the head as opposed to moving the face. It may sound low-tech, but believe me when I say: it has the total opposite effect as hokey-ness.

Finally, there were a number of scenes, particularly inside Spider Web Castle, in which I felt as if I were watching theatre instead of a film, scenes in which all the action seemingly took place within a limited area directly in front of the camera. There were also moments in which actor Toshiro Mifune, portraying the doomed Washizu, reveals his terror by flinging himself backwards against the nearest wall. These felt particularly stagy.

Of course, this is not to say anyone in the cast gives a bad performance, especially not Mifune or Isuzu Yamada, who made for an especially cold and calculating Lady Washizu. In fact, after the most spectacular sequence in “Throne of Blood” – Lord Washizu being shot at by his own archers – I would pay good money to see the actor portray deer-in-the-headlights-style blind fear in a movie anytime.

Kurosawa and Mifune teamed up for many films in the 50’s and 60’s, some of which are considered classics. After the experience of watching “Throne of Blood,” I’d be interested in seeing them.

Overall rating: ****

A SIMPLE PLAN (1998), dir. Sam Raimi

Strong characterization is what puts this movie in the upper echelon of thrillers. The screenplay, adapted by Scott B. Smith from his own novel of the same name, establishes the relationships between its protagonists early on. Then, as the wheels of mistrust, alliance-making, and inevitable betrayal are set in motion, Smith builds suspense by either meeting or defying the viewer’s expectations. A nimble writer, he sometimes accomplishes both within the same scene.

The plot of “A Simple Plan” mirrors the novel: Amidst a snowy wasteland, brothers Hank (Bill Paxton) and Jacob Mitchell (Billy Bob Thornton), along with Jacob’s loutish pal Lou (Brent Briscoe), stumble across a crash-landed Cessna in a remote wooden location. Inside, they find a dead pilot, as well as a duffel bag stuffed with over four million dollars in cash. At first, Hank insists that they report their discovery to the authorities. But after much goading – mainly by the down-on-his-luck Lou, with whom Hank shares a mutual dislike – the trio agrees to hide the money in Hank’s house until they can be certain that cops or drug dealers are not tracking it down.

Unfortunately, keeping the money secret requires quick thinking and tight lips, something that simple-minded Jacob and Lou have in short supply. Also, any trust between the three co-conspirators already shows signs of fraying early on. Once the situation escalates – with the brothers finding themselves caught up in assault, then murder – Hank not only has to protect the money from discovery, but his own reputation against Lou, who desperately wants his share.

Throw into the mix a come-lately FBI agent (Gary Cole) who may not be everything that he claims, and you get a movie that almost becomes exhaustive in its slithery-ness. But as the corpses pile up and the sense of impending doom mounts, what makes “A Simple Plan” increasingly fascinating is trying to pin down the intimate relationships – Hank and Jacob; Hank and his wife Sarah (Bridget Fonda) – that lie at the film’s center. Will the lonely and unemployed, but strangely innocent Jacob, who has long nursed a grudge against Hank for their family’s misfortunes, side with his buddy Lou against him? Meanwhile, how far will Sarah, who started off as a sweet, caring mother-to-be, push Hank to keep the fortune, after initially telling him to turn it in?

Ultimately, “A Simple Plan” contains a moral lesson for audiences, that none of us, whether the town drunk or upstanding citizens, is immune to the corruptive power of greed. It’s an important lesson, and Raimi shows an unexpected maturity and restraint in conveying it. Known for his wild, high-energy style in the “Evil Dead” and “Spider-Man” movies, I can only think of one scene where the director likely resorted to special effects over his talented cast. That scene involved a highly-strung stand-off between two characters; a shotgun blast deflates the tension, albeit in a manner reminiscent of the air being let out of a cartoon inner tube.

Overall rating: ****

SUPERMAN RETURNS (2006), dir. Bryan Singer

I would be curious to hear what longtime Superman readers think of this new movie, which takes liberties with key characters, and lacks any real hardcore, superhero-on-supervillain action. But personally, I loved this movie. I found it to be unexpectedly thoughtful for a big-budget epic, and a super-sized improvement over the last two installments, which were Kryptonite to the franchise.

The folks behind this pseudo-sequel wisely decided to pare the mythology down to its most familiar elements. Naturally, there is Clark Kent/Superman, played this time around by actor Brandon Routh. Despite the unenviable task of having to fill Christopher Reeve’s big red boots, Routh does a credible job as both doofish Clark and stoic Superman, actually channeling the late actor’s voice and mannerisms at times.

The main plot involves Superman’s return to Earth after five years away in space. After making a grand re-entrance, a world-threatening crisis emerges in the form of arch-nemesis Lex Luthor, who remains bald, evil, and quite possibly the most ruthless capitalist around. This time, he has advanced technology from Superman’s home planet at his disposal. Using crystals that are about the size of a large paperweight, Luthor – played snarkily by Kevin Spacey – plans to submerge entire continents, killing billions of people for profit.

Counterbalancing this threat to Superman’s professional life is news that Lois Lane (Kate Bosworth), his great love and Clark’s reporter colleague, has acquired a fiancée as well as a young son. The latter development might cause grousing amidst comic book purists. For me, it only proved that director Bryan Singer and screenwriters Michael Dougherty and Dan Harris understood the theme that was present throughout the best “Superman” films: That there is a price to pay for being the world’s savior. Young Daniel (Tristan Lake Leabu), whom Lois nicknamed “the munchkin,” represents the family Superman gave up because, well, he’s Superman. Outer space called, and he had to accept the charges.

To date, I have read only one review for this movie, which came from a prominent film critic who was disappointed by it. He found “Superman Returns” to be leaden and not as much fun as “Superman” and “Superman II,” which were released in 1978 and 1980, respectively. Frankly, I’m disappointed by his disappointment. True, this movie is not replete with unabashed goofiness the way “Pirates of the Caribbean” was. It wants to treat the myth of its character with respect and reverence, and to the extent that I was left inspired and in awe, it definitely works.

Let us not forget that Superman is more than just a guy in tights who can leap tall buildings in a single bound. He is singular to the degree that he has godlike power, and also to the extent that he is an orphan, the last survivor of a doomed planet. Singer and company craft a satisfying character arc using that oft-overlooked bit of biographical information. As for the part about “Superman Returns” not being fun, that disapproving critic needs to re-watch the scenes where the Man of Steel catches a passenger plane in mid-air, and blocks an armor-piercing round with his eyeball. Whoo.

Overall rating: **** (out of ****)

VERTIGO (1958), dir. Alfred Hitchcock

This has been referred to as Hitchcock’s definitive movie, and having seen it, I think I can understand why. It’s a mystery, which the director was already adept at making, but also a tale of obsession, a theme that resonated throughout his career.

And above all, “Vertigo” is pure cinema, a film that glides along by the sheer power of images and sound. Hitchcock, in top form as both an artist and craftsman, paces the movie to reflect the glacial rhythm of a dream, which is fitting given the plot. Ostensibly, upper-crust wife Kim Novak has become obsessed with the life of her dead ancestor, and spends her days walking around San Francisco in a trance. As Hitchcock draws us into this unusual dilemma, via a retired policeman (Jimmy Stewart) with the titular condition, he frames Novak in establishing shots that feel spare and still to the point of eeriness.

This is a film that really must be experienced. I could describe it in further detail, but I would be required to give away either too much or too little information. I must not do that. All I will say is that “Vertigo” seems to have two halves, which are unified by a sense of romantic helplessness that is heartbreaking. Several writers reportedly worked on the script before Samuel Taylor’s version earned Hitchcock’s approval. The extra care certainly shows; there is great dialogue and a plot twist that, though unexpected, makes sense dramatically as well as thematically.

Finally, one cannot say enough about Jimmy Stewart and Kim Novak, who rose to the challenge of extremely versatile roles. If there are two movies in “Vertigo,” there are also two characters in the script for both leads. Novak gets to play the requisite icy blonde, but also appears as a non-blonde who may be less enigmatic, if perhaps just as mysterious as her doppelganger. Stewart, meanwhile, is a more surprising double-dip; as expected, he portrays the everyman that viewers readily identify with. Gradually, however, his Detective John “Scottie” Ferguson starts transgressing a few moral and psychological boundaries, becoming someone just as recognizably human, though audience members may choose not to admit it.

Overall rating: **** (out of ****)

TARNATION (2003), dir. Jonathan Caouette

F for F***ed-Up? It’s All True

Caouette takes an original approach to the autobiographical documentary, mostly eschewing hearsay and dramatic re-enactment for a more avant-garde, rock video aesthetic. Utilizing home video footage, some of which dates back to when the subject was barely walking age, he assembles an extremely haunting and stylized pastiche of childhood traumas and adolescent angst. Caouette took to the camera at a very young age, his nascent obsession with capturing images on film serving as his primary means of dealing with years of institutional abuse. But as we watch him grow up before our very eyes, and experience his trials and tribulations, which include sexual experimentation, frequent rages, time in a mental hospital, and a mind-altering experiment involving marijuana dipped in formaldehyde, it also becomes apparent that Jonathan has the soul of an artist, and no shortage of talent wielding his trusty Super 8.

At various points, “Tarnation” stares down the director/subject’s Houston-based family, particularly his grandparents, whose unwavering belief in their normalcy blinds them to how irrevocably screwed-up they actually are. They could be brain-damaged; Caouette himself doesn’t seem to know for sure. Meanwhile, these chapters of unflinching realism are offset by dreamlike sister passages, as if the great David Lynch, whose work Caouette clearly was a fan of (Indeed, the funniest montage in the film documents Jonathan’s successful high school musical production of the 1986 classic, “Blue Velvet”), actually dropped in to personally direct his late night TV-viewing hours.

During these somnambulant interludes, which feature close-ups of television screen blizzards, ominous droning barely perceptible beneath the soundtrack, and the bright and shiny juxtaposed with murky darkness, the tone vacillates between calming fantasy and tweaker’s nightmare. Like any dream, however, the sleeper’s subconscious eventually finds its way into the fabric. If “Tarnation” represents a map of the director’s subconscious, what preoccupies him most is his mother, Renee. Growing up, he never got to know the “real” her, the Renee LeBlanc before the depression, before the divorce from Jonathan’s father, before those aforementioned grandparents, who were about as ignorant as they were morally self-righteous, had shock treatments administered to her, destroying her personality. The lynchpin of the movie is his enduring relationship with her, rife with wonder and frustration, which represents the impossible-to-sever umbilical connection that exists between all mothers and their children.

Renee’s dilapidated, mentally gone existence acts as a mirror to Jonathan, reflecting a future he can envision for himself. Turning out the same world-worn way doesn’t seem all that far-fetched, considering how their respective pasts are already very similar (physical and emotional abuse, drugs, burgeoning career based on physical appearances). During a “Big Brother,” reality TV-style confession that serves as the denouement of the film, Jonathan admits his fears of ending up like Renee. It’s just that, when she was his age, she seemed a lot better than she does now. But looking at things rationally, a similar kind of fate seems highly unlikely for Caouette. If his completed autobiography proves anything, it is his willingness to confront the past, to try and sublimate the pain and overcome the trauma. The mere fact that he attempts this, unlike his mother, who avoids talking about the worst times to the very end, confirms how different they really are. Yes, she is his mother; yes, like her, Jonathan Caouette may consider himself tarnished. But in truth, no one shines brighter than he, and this movie is strong evidence of that.

Overall rating: **** (out of ****)

NAUSICAA OF THE VALLEY OF THE WIND (1984), dir. Hayao Miyazaki

A Princess Stuck in the Valley of the Suck

Quite possibly the best animated film made during the 1980’s, “Nausicaa of the Valley of the Wind” crosses science fiction with war scenes of palpable emotional impact. The end result is more ambitious than expected, as the movie reflects on the hypocrisy of war, and mankind’s capacity of terrible acts during times of conflict. Even without too much graphic human suffering, “Nausicaa…” leaves a mark the way “Apocalypse Now” and “The Deer Hunter” left theirs. Yes, the movie also contains flying airships, strange creatures, and psychic powers, but writer/director Hayao Miyazaki merely uses them as context for the issue that’s really preoccupying him.

The movie takes place one thousand years after a fiery cataclysm decimates humanity. All remnants of the human race have dispersed, and a “Toxic Jungle” serves a natural barrier between nations. This enchanted forest contains giant insects, trees that would dwarf the redwoods, and plants that release strange white spores. Inhaling the spores over long periods of time can prove fatal, as the people of the Valley of the Wind, who used to live closer to the “Toxic Jungle,” know all too well.

In hopes of finding a cure for the lethal powders produced by the flora, Princess Nausicaa, pride and joy of her people, makes regular journeys to the “Toxic Jungle.” A top gun behind the controls of her jet ski/hang glider hybrid, the princess is even more likable for how much she clearly cares about her subjects. When she stumbles across the abandoned shell of an Ohm, an elephantine mollusk whose shell features translucent skylights for “eyes,” Nausicaa’s first thoughts have to do with the potential benefits for the valley. Unfortunately, casual activities such as this, and saving her friend from a ticked-off insect that chases him halfway across an adjacent desert, eventually give way to a more serious story. Very soon, war arrives at the doorstep of her home.

The kingdom of Tolmekia does not formally declare war on the Valley of the Wind. However, some very important cargo crashes down nearby, and their army rushes in to secure it. The siege leaves Nausicaa’s father, the king, murdered, and her people inducted into the Tolmekians’ master plan. Unfortunately, Tolmekia’s main enemy, another relatively advanced kingdom called Pejite, cannot separate unwitting foes from genuine ones, so they plan to wipe out the entire valley using a very clever strategem.

Miyazaki, who has addressed the topic of war in other features (most recently, “Howl’s Moving Castle”), paints the conflict in “Nausicaa…” as a potentially endless cycle of atrocities. Ironically, those who inflict there terrible deeds, the director argues, sincerely believe that humanity will benefit from their actions. For example, the Tolmekians plan to use the cargo, which they stole from Pejite, to destroy the “Toxic Jungle” once and for all. The way Princess Kushana, the officer in charge of the Tolmekian army, sees it, the forest must be destroyed, or mankind will spend the rest of eternity living at the mercy of the insects.

On the flipside, Pejite is ready to unleash a glowing, red-eyed Hell upon the Valley of the Wind. Their main purpose, however, isn’t preventing their rival’s machinations, but getting the cargo back, so they can level the “Toxic Jungle” themselves. Like the Tolmekians, Pejite also wants to return mankind to its former, loftier position. However, they are deathly afraid of Tolmekia being the sole possessor of a power as destructive as that cargo. To Nausicaa, who spends time as a prisoner of both kingdoms, the mutual willingness to kill innocents to achieve a goal makes Tolmekia and Pejite equals in her eyes. But Asbel, a vengeful young pilot/prince from Pejite, takes umbrage. “All the Tolmekians want is to take over the world,” he says. “We are nothing like them.” His words only serve to underscore his naivete. After all, since when does any participant in a war not view themselves in a superior moral light compared to the enemy?

Luckily, Miyazaki constantly reminds the audience what “fighting a just war” really implies. As the conflict between the two nations draws in creatures from the “Toxic Jungle,” it’s the weak who suffer most, while those in power get to indulge their most sadistic impulses. Whether it’s images of women and children huddled together, hungry and scared, while the menfolk prepare war plans; the old adage “burning a village in order to save it” brought to startling reality for heroes returning home; a battlefield littered with the corpses of soldier dragonflies (an allegorical shot that’s just as potent as what Miyazaki intended them to represent); or, most appallingly, a display of near-unbearable cruelty visited upon an innocent life for the expressed purpose of stirring up its comrades, trust that in “Nausicaa…,” war contains enough pain for everyone, regardless of gender, age, or species.

Indeed, like most modern war movies, “Nausicaa…” is a veritable minefield of moral transgressions. Even the titular heroine commits one. It’s out of character, of course; through most of the movie, she shows nothing less than absolute respect towards all living things. This one action becomes a blemish, something she spends the rest of the movie trying desperately to redeem. Interestingly, Miyazaki won’t excuse her simply because it is wartime. Human beings are not animals, he seems to be arguing. Our ability to rationalize, to accept the complexities of a given situation, sets us apart from the beasts, who are slaves to their baser instincts.

These baser instincts, such as the need for revenge, cause Nausicaa’s people to take up arms against the Tolmekian invaders. It seems that their doomed airship carried spores from the “Toxic Jungle,” spelling the end for a beloved orchard. Can Nausicaa save her people’s souls, lest they become beasts, or worse, standard-issue characters from a war flick? Miyazaki’s other films during the same decade (“Castle in the Sky,” “Kiki's Delivery Service”) tended towards happy resolutions, so don’t expect the writer/director to deviate this time, either, even if that makes “Nausicaa…” less tragic, and radically different, from quite possibly every war epic that came before.

Overall rating: **** (out of ****)

THE LADY VANISHES (1938), dir. Alfred Hitchcock

…but the ‘Master of Suspense’ Makes his Presence Felt

Imagine waking up and discovering that someone you know had disappeared. Worse, imagine trying to convince other people, only to be told that the person never existed.

It sounds like the premise of the recent thriller “Flightplan,” but it actually describes a Hitchcock film made more than sixty years earlier. In “The Lady Vanishes,” written by Sidney Gilliat and Frank Launder, Margaret Lockwood plays Iris Henderson, an American travelling abroad who stumbles across a conspiracy.

The missing person is a retired governess named Miss Froy (Dame May Whitty), whom Iris befriends while staying at a hotel in a small European country. The next day, Iris takes a bump on the head, and Miss Froy comes to her rescue. But shortly after their train leaves the station, the kindly old woman disappears.

Miss Henderson insists she had a companion on the train, but the others in her drawing room recall no such person. Neither can the porter, nor anybody else, from the paranoid banister (Cecil Parker) to the fellows hurrying home to see a cricket match (Naunton Wayne, Basil Radford). Only Gilbert (Michael Redgrave), a cadish musician who made a terrible impression the night before, reluctantly believes Iris’ story. While he has never met Miss Froy himself, a particular clue persuades him that foul play is indeed afoot.

As for the reasons that motivated Miss Froy’s kidnapping, let’s just say there is more to her than meets the eye, even as the movie itself has less substance than we might expect. Like some of Hitchcock’s best movies—“North by Northwest” springs to mind—the plot merely serves as a delivery system for the director’s particular brand of thrilling cinema. For a man with such prodigious artistic gifts, Hitchcock certainly had a great instinct for giving the audience what they wanted. In the case of “The Lady Vanishes,” he gives them suspense, laughs, images that linger in the mind. He even throws in a charming romance between the seemingly mismatched Lockwood and Redgrave.

A brain doctor (Paul Lukas), rendezvousing with a terminal patient in Prague, tries to convince Iris that Miss Froy is really a figment of her imagination. Is it possible Iris created her, that she is the result of her bump on the head? Or perhaps, considering those upcoming nuptials with an aristocrat in England, Iris is simply preoccupied. Could she be distracting herself, the better to ignore her dread? She admits to not loving him, but her father wants to put his coat of arms next to the company name.

For a while, Hitchcock teases us with the possibility that Miss Froy is indeed a figment of Iris’ mind. During the first scene, which takes place in the hotel lobby, she enters, briefly interacts with the hotel clerk, and then exits through the front door. Hardly anybody seems to notice her. Stranger still, Hitchcock has one of his technicians—probably sound man Sydney Wiles—turn off the boom mikes so that the music and some select noises overlap any spoken dialogue.

The effect is slightly eerie; and the director, superlative craftsman that he was, orders the actors to stay relatively still until Miss Froy leaves. Ultimately, he manipulates image and sound to completely undercut Dame Whitty’s presence. But something about her lingers in the moments after she leaves, like the remnants of a faded memory. Then the rest of the actors start moving, more sounds appear on the audio track, characters recite their lines, and things pick up.

Meanwhile, any doubts we may have about the disappeared woman’s nature only persist to a certain point, then the race to find her begins. Naturally, villains toss in a few unexpected curves to throw off the amateur sleuths, such as a doppelganger for Miss Froy. While her facial features don’t bear much resemblance, she wears a similarly colored outfit, and claims to be the one who helped Iris earlier. Iris insists that this newly emerged woman is not her friend. However, the train has yet to take on new passengers, save for the doctor’s patient in a gurney, and the manifest shows the same number of people.

So if the woman isn’t Miss Froy, why does she pretend that she is? And how did she manage to board the train in the first place, without either Iris or Gilbert spotting her? This is the most satisfying mind-bender in the entire movie, but to Hitchcock’s credit, he finds a way to explain it satisfactorily.

Another thing he does well is portray Iris and Gilbert as “everyman” heroes. Regular joes can show formidable intelligence, but the brain must serve as their primary weapon. The director seems to understand this; whenever the two stars have to get physical, Hitchcock boxes out the action in a clumsy, slapsticky, but believable way. If an exception exists, it is the sequence towards the end, when Gilbert climbs out the window and makes his way along the side of the train.

The camera shoots him from outside the locomotive. As he dangles between two windows, an oncoming train nearly smashes him. While this seems a bit forced, given that Redgrave’s character is primarily funny and romantic, one cannot argue that the resulting shot is a jolter. Hitchcock, who would create some truly memorable compositions and juxtapositions in future, better movies—a few of which also involved trains—was definitely on the right track this time.

“We’re not in England now.”

Indeed, the characters in “The Lady Vanishes” have boarded a train to Hitchcock-land. Here, unspeakable acts occur in places associated with “safe” feelings by the audience. Remember “Psycho,” and the notorious scene of Janet Leigh getting stabbed in the shower? It took theater audiences completely by surprise, since no one expected such a deed to occur in a clean bathroom setting. It’s not exactly a dark alleyway, where people get killed all the time.

Throughout his career, the effectiveness of Hitchcock’s suspense movies have had to do with confounding the audience’s expectations. The same way that the virginal white porcelain of the Bates motel held a certain unspoiled purity, the passenger rail in “The Lady Vanishes” gives off a cozy, hospitable vibe. In a place such as this, travelers and business-people enjoy comforts resembling home. One can purchase a drawing room with cushioned seats, or drink hot tea in the dining car. And someone like Miss Froy, travelling across the European continent, regularly finds yourself in the company of fellow British citizens.

As viewers, we are meant to ask ourselves, How can someone disappear from a place like this? Especially considering the presence of other subjects of the crown, who are also away from the sovereign state. One would expect countrymen to look out for one another, that nothing nefarious could befall an Englishwoman in the near-constant presence of her own brethren.

But herein lies much of the “The Lady Vanishes”’ humor: How these British civilians—even when they’re no longer in England—expect a certain standard of decorum to be upheld. As a result of their stiff upper lips, Miss Froy’s disappearance doesn’t arouse any outrage. After all, why should they waste their rancor on something that simply cannot happen to an English citizen? Like twits, they assume she must not be real, otherwise she would be taking her tea in the dining car, not causing a ruckus throughout the train.

This type of naivete especially applies to the pair of cricket enthusiasts, who hide in their cabin to avoid being questioned by Iris. These two played no part in the actual scheme to disappear the lady. However, they fear any answers they give will only lead to further inquiry, which might prevent them from reaching their cricket match.

Therefore, even though they had a conversation with Miss Froy, they agree with the brain doctor and Iris’ cabin mates, who say the missing woman must be a figment of the poor girl’s imagination. As one of the gentlemen puts it, “An Englishwoman doesn’t just disappear into thin air.” Indeed, Miss Froy did not. However, these two cricket buffs have the equation all wrong: it is possible for Miss Froy to be missing, and still be an actual person; it is possible for Miss Froy to be an Englishwoman, and to have disappeared from the train. But neither gentleman believes that one or the other condition can exist independently.

*** Warning! The following contains information of a SPOILOUS nature! *** Even after the vanished lady returns, they refuse to accept what happened to her. Iris and Gilbert try to explain, and the old woman herself clearly looks worked over. But their reply is fairly dismissive. “My dear chap, you must have gotten the wrong end of the stick somewhere,” says one.

“Yes, these things just don’t happen,” says the other.

This misguided sense of immunity nearly leads to comic tragedy. Prior to the film’s climactic scene, Gilbert tries to warn everyone in the dining car that they have been detached from the rest of the train, and are now headed towards a trap. But even the most obvious evidence, such as how the car is rolling backward in the direction they just came from, fails to have an effect. “There’s nothing left of the train beyond the sleeping car,” Gilbert insists.

“There must be,” one of the cricket enthusiasts replies. “Our bags are in the first class carriage.”

Overall rating: **** (out of ****)

ROUGE (1987), dir. Stanley Kwan

A Ghost's Chance of Rekindling an Old Flame

In “Rouge,” a ghost from fifty years in the past returns to Hong Kong, searching for her lost love. No, this isn't a goofy romantic-comedy, even if the premise sounds awfully familiar. Instead, it's a highly-effective melodrama from director Stanley Kwan, as well as a star vehicle for Anita Mui, the late Cantonese pop singer. As Fleur, a beautiful courtesan who died tragically with her lover, Mui gets to sing, dress up in period costumes, and otherwise command the screen.

The story: Fleur's spirit somehow fails to be reunited in the afterlife with that of Chen (Leslie Cheung, from "The Chinese Feast" and "Happy Together"), her earthly paramour. Assuming he has been reincarnated, she patiently waits in the underworld until August 11th, 1987. Why that date? According to a diviner, whom she consulted while still alive, that is the soonest they can meet again on Earth. Fleur wants to see Chen one more time before returning to the land of the dead, where she will be reborn herself.

Of course, Hong Kong has changed a lot by the time she returns. Fleur requires a guide, and a meek ad man named Yuen (Alex Man) takes pity on her. At first, he doesn't know that she's a ghost; he dismisses her as a harmless eccentric, only to discover her true nature during the bus ride home. After that tense, appropriately creepy revelation, he still takes her back to his apartment, which he shares with his reporter girlfriend, Chor (Emily Chu).

The writers of “Rouge,” Tai An-Ping Chiu and Bik-Wa Lei, cut back-and-forth between Fleur and Chen, and Yuen and Chor, telling parallel stories. With the former couple, we witness the tale of their sad fate, which may not be as clear-cut as Fleur made it sound. Meanwhile, the other couple tries to figure out what really happened to Chen, why his spirit, after he died, was never able to find Fleur's. Relying mainly on Chor's journalistic skills, they locate several clues in places Fleur and Chen used to frequent. Ultimately, these lead to a surprising plot twist or two, which casts everything we were told in a different light. Friend turns against friend, lover against lover, and the climactic Peking opera movie set seems oddly appropriate, as the present literally comes face-to-face with the past.

But solving a fifty-year old metaphysical mystery, compelling as it ends up being, isn't the sole aim of the filmmakers. They use the two time periods, and two couples, to juxtapose love in the 30’s with the 80’s, to show how some aspects are different, while others have stayed the same.

At one point, the old-fashioned Fleur asks Yuen why he hasn't married his girlfriend. He replies that he doesn’t feel any pressure. After all, they live a staid, comfortable life already. They are even past the point of buying each other love tokens. In an earlier scene, when Yuen “surprises” Chor with a gift, it turns out to be an eminently-practical, but not exactly romantic, pair of sneakers.

By contrast, from the moment Fleur and Chen lock eyes, everything about their love affair vibrates with urgency. He publicly declares his affection for her after just one encounter, and showers her with gifts large and small (such as the ornamental make-up box from which the movie’s title derives). After Chen's wealthy family disowns him for refusing to call off the relationship, they continue their desperate clinging. Cinematographer Bill Wong accentuates their passion by infusing the 30's time period with lots of reds and golds. Meanwhile, he adopts conservative colors for the 80's, thus creating two very distinct moods.

But this does not mean relationships in previous times were better, even if the people involved may have shown more passion. Clearly, Fleur is more desperate about her man than Chor about her own. But a woman's role in 1980's Hong Kong has also changed dramatically since the 30's. When Fleur was a child, her parents abandoned her; she became a professional courtesan at the tender age of 14. She knows she must marry in order to become a "respectable" woman. If she does not accomplish this, especially while at the height of her beauty and popularity, she might be stuck at the brothel forever. A modern career woman like Chor never has to worry about suffering this kind of fate.

Perhaps, because love can be viewed more as a luxury than a necessity, Chor’s relationship with Yuen isn't nearly as urgent. Even so, both couples still have aspects in common, such as the need for physical intimacy. Indeed, during one scene, Fleur peeks in on Yuen and Chor while they make love. As she watches, the footage of one couple intermingles with images of the other. They become a montage of affection.

On the one hand, this sequence functions as psychological filmmaking, merging point-of-view shots with memory. But at the same time, it argues that love in the 80’s only seems staid and comfortable, that underneath, the passion that comes from feeling close to someone remains alive and kicking.

Overall rating: **** (out of ****)

GOOD BYE, DRAGON INN (2003), dir. Tsai Ming-liang

A Movie-going Experience about, among Other Things, the Movie-going Experience

Tsai Ming-liang’s follow-up to his breakthrough film, “What Time is It There?” is an absorbing visual poem about the pros and cons of going to the movies. While it is less expansive than his previous outing, it clearly belongs alongside the director’s other films. Like the rest, it features lonely characters in an urban setting, as well as long, static shots.

“Good Bye, Dragon Inn” takes place in an old-fashioned movie house, which has one screen, shows revivals of classics, and suffers from a lack of customers. The Fu-Ho Grand Theater, as it is called, doesn’t quite live up to its namesake anymore. Much of the interior seems dilapidated, and the overall mood approaches sadness.

The movie alternates between a ticket woman with a bad leg (Shiang-chyi Chen), who seems to be the only employee of this vast theatre, and a young man (Kiyonobu Mitamura) who has come to enjoy King Hu’s martial arts epic “Dragon Inn.” She happens to be away from the booth when he wanders in, so he sneaks into the theater sans ticket. The two characters remain on separate paths: she performs her nightly routine, while he attempts to enjoy “Dragon Inn." Through the course of the film, they never connect with each other. Nor anybody else, for that matter.

Practically half the movie is spent showing the ticket woman hobbling to her locker, a Herculian task given the Fu-Ho's size. Often, the director will let the camera linger until the character retreats from the frame completely. This technique slows down the rhythm of the editing, which affects the speed at which the audience perceives events. But it also emphasizes the solitude of the character, since she remains the sole subject of Ming-liang's interminable shots.

In the case of the young man, the extended takes capture his growing frustration. He does not enter the Fu-Ho Grand looking to be an island onto himself. But petty annoyances, stretched out over the course of long, uninterrupted shots, go a long way towards alienating him from his fellow movie-goers. He hops from seat to seat, but everywhere he goes, he encounters couples who make loud snacking noises, or sneakers next to his head. Occasionally, his interest is piqued by a fellow patron. Unfortunately, his friendly approach often meets a cold shoulder.

The youth never acheives any kind of connection with anyone. There are men who cruise the Fu-Ho looking for dispassionate sex, but it's dispassionate to the point of being invisible. In one scene, which takes place in the men’s room, he never realizes sexual congress has been happening in a nearby stall until the surprise appearance of the second participant. The joke is how subdued, how unimpressively muted, both parties must have been to accomplish such stealthy relations.

Somehow, the youth locates a hidden labyrinth, frequented by men who wear yearnful looks. They wander through shadowy passageways, eyeing one another, squeezing against each other in narrow spots. These shots depict friction without actual heat. The youth's standards, being higher than some, explain why he holds out until meeting someone who tickles his fancy. He approaches a boyishly-handsome stranger in a blue button-up (Kang-sheng Lee, a Ming-liang regular since 1992's "Rebels of the Neon God"). But despite early indications, this one isn’t interested either. Once again, instead of hooking up, the young man finds himself left high and dry.

The way the director handles it, however, proves strangely amusing. He waits until the moment both characters appear most intimate—the stranger having ignited the youth’s cigarette, as well as his libido. When the former leans in as if to kiss the stranger, the latter nonchalantly states the theater is haunted, then walks away. One suspects that the youth has just encountered a ghost himself, but he is too busy being sexually frustrated to heed the message.

Could the Fu-Ho really be haunted, or was the stranger simply messing with the young man’s mind? Several scenes imply the former, such as the ghostly young woman who makes eating sunflower seeds seem like Chinese water torture. There is also the appearance of two actors from the film “Dragon Inn”: Shih Chun and Tien Miao (another veteran of Ming-liang's films). They mourn how no one goes to see movies anymore, and how the images of their younger selves have faded from the public mind. In either scenario, these characters could be people off the street, or they could indeed be spectres. Ming-liang never states anything explicitly.

Personally, I much prefer the ambiguity. The suggestion of ghosts completely changes our perception of shots at the beginning of the film. Remember those opening images: Countless heads staring forward at the projection against the movie screen. In later shots, what happened to those extras? Were they ever really there, or could Ming-liang have been implying something more mystical, that human beings leave part of themselves behind, even when they go to the movies?

Upon looking back, I wondered whether the ticket woman, who never interacts with anyone, could have been a ghost. Perhaps she is cursed to haunt the corridors of the Fu-Ho, a Sisyphus-like spirit who sweeps floors instead of rolling boulders. More likely, however, she’s a real person, whose condition restricts her to menial labor. But working at the cinema allows her certain privileges: There is that wonderful moment when she walks behind the theater screen, and stares up at the giant image of a warrior woman from “Dragon Inn.” The camera cuts back-and-forth between her and the female fighter, as lights from the silver screen play off her face. Not only does this moment perfectly capture the liberating power of the cinema, it offers insight into the ticket woman. We realize that, in spite of the difficult working conditions, she might have chosen to be here all along, in exchange for moments like this one.

“Good Bye, Dragon Inn,” is noteworthy enough for being filmed in the director's signature style. It's also set in an interesting place, and has something to say about movie-going experience. In addition, everything that happens to the youth while he tries to watch "Dragon Inn" adds up to a humorous assemblage of common moviegoer complaints.

Above all, the movie takes place in a theater, which Ming-liang turns into a microcosm of big city problems. The Fu-Ho itself is an historical edifice left to rot, and contains episodes about personal space (the “noise pollution” from the snack-eaters in the viewing room) as well as social alienation (the lonely ticket woman, the silent men in the labyrinth). There is also a crime issue, as deviant behavior has creeped into a place that welcomes young children (the bathroom liaisons, the gay men cruising the labyrinth).

What caused this downward spiral? Is the decline of the Fu-Ho Grand Theater predicated by the same factors that have affected the movie-showing business in America? Too much piracy? Too many entertainment alternatives? Has their industrialized culture broken too many communities into disparate islands onto themselves, for whom the thought of sharing space, time, and experience seems unbearable?

Overall rating: **** (out of ****)