UNDER CAPRICORN (Alfred Hitchcock, 1949)

"A person’s reconquering of their own self is carried out under the double sign of deliverance and redemption providing the film its internal, dramatic progression, a victory over self-contempt and fear of the contempt of others."

So says Jacques Rivette in his piece on Hitchock's Under Capricorn. It's easy to project certain elements of this film onto those subsequently made by Rivette. I'm thinking of Duelle, Gang of Four, The Duchess of Langeais. There is the unsettling artifice of the setting for one. A "queer" Gothic mansion, as it is described, in which the strangeness seems to be less about the architecture or design and more about the people who reside in it. The house isn't dark in the grim sense, but it certainly has a deathly quality to it. And is Charles Adare not a Celine and Julie type figure? Not really, I know. But he is a good-hearted meddler who treats the Flusky home as a stage where he seems to come and go as he pleases.

In fact, what are we supposed to make of the main trio? Wilding in his screwball comedy, Cotten seeming so noirish, and Bergman in her melodrama. The film has elements of all these styles, so it works, but it's important to remember how disconnected these characters are, and how much the film is the project of their reconstruction- in spite of the essential phoniness of their environment. There needs to be some constitution of the self in order for it to be transcended and for human bonds to then be built.

Rivette so beautifully captures the nature of this trio that I'm not inclined to say much more:

"The transfer of responsibility for the sin had previously split the couple, the one assuming the punishment, the other the bad conscience. This first sacrifice, wrongly consented to, obliges them to abandon themselves to the euphoria of other incessantly renewed mutual sacrifices. In the end, it is not possible for them to abandon the sacrifice and accept happiness without the third person in turn taking it on before departing—the carrier of evil, bringing in her wake the drama’s Erinyes, far from Australian land."

Milly as the villain stands outside the triangle because her self-hatred manifests as the urge to destroy another. But to love like the Flusky's, one needs to suffocate under the weight of love. Charles realizes the impossibility of this and moves on, while Milly stumbles blindly until the end.

Imperfect, but a masterpiece.

*Watched at Film Forum so I have no screenshots.

THE GIRL I LOVED (Keisuke Kinoshita, 1946)

Jingo is home from the war and expects the girl he loves to be waiting for him and his proposal. The girl is Yoshiko, who was abandoned as a baby before her mother's suicide and adopted by Jingo's family. She, in fact, did not wait for him, having apparently fallen in love with Mr. Noda. Noda is a veteran of the war who somewhat embarrassingly walks with a limp, but plays the violin and reads, while the townspeople play the harmonica and appear to be illiterate.

The film teases us with the possibility of romance between the quasi-siblings, reveals Yoshiko's plans to marry Mr. Noda, and, at the end, leaves us wondering if she truly has no feelings for Jingo and if he truly accepts the role of brother (-in-law). In my reading, no and no. Her preference for Noda over Jingo is not because the latter is too much of a brother, but because the former is an outsider in the village like herself. This connection was fostered through circumstance, but with Jingo's return, Yoshiko's feelings are ambiguous, like her identification with two mothers- one living and one dead.

The theme of outsiders in an insular village reappeared years later in A Legend or Was It? and it's interesting to compare the two. For the most part, the later film isn't sympathetic towards its villagers who come across as stereotypically provincial and irrational. Here, Kinoshita shows more of a humanist touch and one senses that he loves or at least respects his characters. He emphasizes the differences between the educated Mr. Noda and farmers like Jingo, but also their shared qualities. Mr. Noda points out how war gives their lives urgency, underscoring the fact that he simply got to begin living his before Jingo. But then we're shown Noda, in a distinct low-angle shot, playing violin for a seated circle of confused and bored boys used to the harmonica and folk songs. Tellingly, Yoshiko is seated among them with Jingo, and the two walk out on the performance to discuss his secret. But Jingo is too embarrassed to reveal his love now, and too good a person to ruin the happiness of others, so he returns home, where, without any conviction, he tells his mother that they need to embrace Yoshiko's marriage.

Once again, Kinoshita demonstrates his ability to capture the poetic beauty of wherever he films. The pastures of The Girl I Loved lend an innocence to the film that makes the war something of a distant memory. There is a transcendent shot of Yoshiko blissfully running through the pasture that is later echoed when Jingo chases his quasi-brother through the fields in tears. Also memorable is a rapid succession of cuts between Yoshiko applying lipstick and her mother's dress flowing in the wind, which now seems quite Kinoshita-esque. Overall, the film is simplistic in its story, but memorable for its poetic style and ambiguity.

A LEGEND OR WAS IT? and WOMAN (Keisuke Kinoshita, 1963 and 1948)

My introduction to the world of Keisuke Kinoshita and two films I won't soon forget. A Legend or Was It? and Woman reveal a director relatively unconcerned with original or complex stories. Instead, Kinoshita takes two simple premises and shows his incredible ability to ratchet up the melodrama and insanity. Marked by a frenetic camera with intense close-ups and quick cuts, these films never really let up once the action is set in motion.

And that takes no time at all. In my limited repository of film knowledge, A Legend or Was It?, the superior of the two discussed here, might be comparable to something by Samuel Fuller, like 40 Guns. In 1945, a family (the eldest brother and sister shown above) escapes from Tokyo during the war to a secluded, insular village in the mountains. The village is safe geographically, but has felt the effects of war, relinquishing both men and food to the Japanese army. There is a mutual dislike between the new family, who find the townspeople hostile, and the townspeople, who seem to distrust outsiders from the city. The family does receive support from the mayor, whose son is set to marry their daughter Kieko. But when her brother, Hideyuki, who is returning from the war, meets the mayor's son, he recognizes him as a soldier he witnessed raping and killing innocents in China. Hideyuki tells Kieko, the wedding is off, and all hell breaks loose.

The two young woman at the center of the story- Kieko (Shima Iwashita) and Yuri (Mariko Kaga)-  dominate the film every time they appear on screen. They deliver amazing performances that propel their characters' vilification at the hands of the simple and pathetic men who surround them. Another  highlight is Kinoshita as an image-maker. The dynamic camerawork makes this melodrama quite a thriller. Kinoshita mixes intense close-ups with long shots that incorporate the beautiful landscape of the mountains the way great Westerns do. And lastly, I'd be remiss if I didn't mention the music, which I can only describe as if a drone artist appropriated carnival-type music (maybe like The Savage Young Taterbug?). It's bizarre and sometimes in tonal opposition to what's going on narratively, but it adds a distinct nightmarish quality to the film. This is really one of the best I've seen in some time.

Woman, though an inferior film, only added to my opinion of Kinoshita. The premise here is actually more bare-bones and the running time shorter (67 minutes). Toshiko, a dancer, gets asked by Tadashi, with whom she has a conflicted romantic history, to run away with him. Tadashi has just committed a highly publicized burglary and is already on the run. Toshiko at turns goes along with him and tries to ditch him.

Until an explosive conclusion, much of the film is just a back-and-forth psychological interrogation between the two, largely centered around whether Tadashi can really change his criminal ways (he can't). We're somewhat sympathetic because he says his problems all began when he returned from the war. Their interplay is engaging on a performance-level, but Kinoshita's formal inventiveness makes it extra noteworthy. The close-ups are even closer than those in A Legend or Was It?, as Kinoshita zeroes in on characters' mouths and teeth (alongside a peculiar interest in their feet). In the middle of dialogue, he will suddenly cut to shots of the sea (both of these films make good use of their location). And he uses some low-angle shots, especially during a musical performance, that are reminiscent of Orson Welles. Woman doesn't leave the same impression as A Legend or Was It?, but Kinoshita already strikes me as a filmmaker who struggles to make films that aren't worthwhile.

THE TIME TO LIVE AND THE TIME TO DIE (Hou Hsiao-hsien, 1985)

About a quarter of Hou Hsiao-hsien's film of his childhood passed before I became ensnared in its soft rhythm and transfixed by its emotional depth. The experience was much like watching Cafe Lumiere (a less dramatic film) and slowly realizing how much lied under the quiet exteriors of its characters. I wonder if I was more ambivalent toward Millennium Mambo because it begins with such a masterful, hypnotic shot that even articulates a possible rhythm to the film- Vicky's dreamlike inability to leave Hao-Hao- but ends up being dull and quite lifeless.

The Time to Live and the Time to Die is dark but honest, unobtrusive, and humanistic. Character motivations are so unemphatic that familiar coming-of-age tropes seem to take place naturally. As I've seen in other Hou films, scenes are sometimes constructed in a way that makes it unclear where the main characters are fixed or if they are present at all. This could speak to the family's history as emigrants to Taiwan from China (the grandmother perpetually getting lost trying to walk back), or perhaps to the modest ambitions- to be teachers or members of the military- that seem to lie on the fringes of their everyday concerns. In a film where dying is so inevitable and assured, living seems to be far more uncertain.

A SHORT FILM ABOUT LOVE (Krzysztof Kieslowski, 1988)

I like when recently watched films unexpectedly resonate with one another. Rather than watch the Hou Hsiao-hsien film I've had queued up for the past two days, I watched what is apparently one of his favorites. But more than Hou maybe, Tsai Ming-liang's Vive L'Amour (six years later) and Edward Yang's The Terrorizers (two years prior) struck me as spiritual brethren to this fantastic effort from Kieslowski. 

Of course, no one can spy on their neighbors without evoking Rear Window. And not knowing anything about A Short Film About Love, I had been curious about the Hitchcock influence on Kieslowski's Red. There is voyeurism abound in these three films, sure- the peepers, eavesdroppers, and us, the viewers. But A Short Film and Red are highly memorable in their emphasis on the spatial geography that connects and distances its characters.

Red is masterful in its omniscient view of Geneva, especially the street corner where Valentine and the young judge live. Long shots highlight near encounters and two lives intertwined. The windows of their apartments, through which the camera regularly moves, make their lives seem frighteningly vulnerable.

Traces of Rear Window can't be overlooked in this regard, but- to return to him- Hou Hsiao-hsien's Cafe Lumiere (a film whose status grows in my mind the more I think about it) also has some Red-like qualities. There is an incredible scene in Hou's film where the two main characters (friends or maybe more) are both shown riding trains and gazing out the window. Suddenly, we see the trains pass on adjacent rails, but Yoko (the female lead) is no longer gazing and slightly hidden from the window, so they never see each other.

Cafe Lumiere

Valentine in the background in Red

Is there ever anything but loneliness and emptiness behind this attention to spacial proximity? 

A Short Film About Love doesn't really play any beautiful serendipitous games for the sake of the audience because the peeping construct is, to some extent, dismantled very quickly. When Tomek and Magda meet, the film even flirts for a bit with being an uncomfortable sexual coming of age story in the vein of Skolimowski. But the climax of the film (a climax in itself) proves that it is indeed a film about love, which is more than sex. 

If not sex, what is love? When Tomek utters the word, he explains that he wants nothing. His love comes from her presence (even across the street), his visual access to her, and their overlapping routines. Tomek's innocence is underscored when we learn he no longer cares for Magda's sex life, just the banality of her everyday routines. She mistakenly tries to provoke some sexual response from him by having him caress her hands in the cafe and touch her thighs in her apartment. But the most important physical contact is clearly what begins and ends the film- Magda trying to touch the sleeping Tomek's bandaged wrist. It's a purely emotional gesture to frame this film of reverse sexual awakening.

OBSESSION (Brian De Palma, 1976)

Naturally, I'll begin this blog with a film I dislike.

Brian De Palma generates divisiveness on a number of levels. There is debate over preference for his Hitchcockian thrillers vs. his crime films vs. his divergent efforts (most of which seem to be commercial failures). There is probably just as much debate about whether his films are trash or goofy referentialism/overblown satire or something more (intellectually demanding I guess).

I tend to approach De Palma films within that second category. For certain cinephiles, this might create the tendency to project some postmodern game onto these movies, where the goal is to catch the reference and evaluate based on how well that reference is complicated or played with. I don't consider myself a cinephile, but I've felt this impulse to varying degrees.

But is there any play in Obsession? On first viewing, I would answer no. At least it is not play on the level of Blow Out, Body Double, Sisters, or Hi, Mom! In other words, if there is play in Obsession, it's not fun or enjoyable. All of these other films are vastly superior in this regard. You do have a little humor in waiting for LaSalle's (Lithgow) unscrupulous nature to reveal itself. I also found the film lighthearted in its sudden reveal that Courtland's (Robertson) obsession is actually ruining them financially. But is there any exploration of the self-reflexiveness of the film beyond what can be summarized by its premise? Not really.

I should give the ending credit for being ambiguous and inviting some different readings. Not until the very end does Courtland realize this is not a typical happy ending, but an incestuous one. He learns Sandra is his daughter Amy (Bujold) and cheerfully goes along with their embrace, whatever that might imply. Is Courtland just a daydreaming cinephile who is at last awoken from the movie playing in his own head, with its insular language of cinematic reference? Is this revelation the final act of De Palma's hand unraveling the cloak of Hitchockian signifiers to remind the viewers that this is in fact, his own original invention (as well as Schrader's (and Herrmann's) who I should have mentioned probably)? Maybe if you found yourself caught up in the drama of the film it worked like this. But I was just happy for it to be over.

Is a sense of play necessary to make a referential film worthwhile? Can the absurdity of it all be excised? As far as Vertigo tributes (See how I'm just bringing this up now?) go, I much prefer André Téchiné's Barocco, which lacks the flair of American postmodernism. Amazingly, it and Obsession never get brought up together despite the fact that they were both released in 1976.

To Hitchcock's credit, the two are incredibly different films that both seem to capture some essence of their point(s) of reference. While De Palma weaves in pieces from multiple Hitchcock films, Téchiné (originally a critic) draws from French film and even includes word-for-word dialogue from Johnny Guitar for good measure. I faintly remember reading a quote from Téchiné that said his early films were so referential because they were all inspired by the cinema. In other words, he needed to work through his cinematic language to find an original voice (something that seems fairly common among auteurs). But that statement undersells the originality and beauty of a film like Barocco. It's obviously fair to say that De Palma is more interested in humorously underscoring the fucked-upness of Hitchcock characters than revealing some underlying beauty. But Obsession, in some ways, represents the worst case scenario of where cinematic language limits rather than expands the possibilities of expression through reference.