DREAM STORY

I’ve been in a real Eyes Wide Shut phase these last couple of weeks. A lot of deep-dive overly analytical videos on the film have been recommended to me on Instagram recently and I have to admit that some of them make some interesting points. 

 

The film also trended on Twitter the other day and it’s being pushed on Tubi (where I ended up watching it). Much like when C-19 shut the world down in March of 2020 and everyone was rushing to post their thoughts/reviews/feelings on Safe, Outbreak, Contagion and other virus-related movies, I think a lot of the recent Epstein and Diddy news has people trying to connect all of that to Eyes Wide Shut and anything EWS-related.

I guess this blog post means I’m participating…


Outside of hardcore Eyes Wide Shut Fans, it seems like folks don’t realize that there are three other film adaptations of the original source material: Traumnovelle. Two films before EWS (Traumnovelle and Il cavaliere, la morte e il diavolod) and one recent adaptation from 2024 (Dream Story). I don’t even think a lot of hardcore Kubrick fans acknowledge this. I didn't even know the most recent adaptation existed until recently. It isn't good but it's also fascinating to me.

You would think someone like me with a blog like PINNLAND would jump at the opportunity to make comparisons and sidebysides, but it’s kind of pointless. Someone also did the work for me (the 1983 Italian version is left out but you get the idea).

  

There is certainly a nice-sized Venn diagram crossover of Eyes Wide Shut cultists and diehard Kubrick fans, but there are separate groups that don’t always intermingle. Believe it or not - there are online communities of folks that are obsessed with Eyes Wide Shut that don’t necessarily care about all the Easter eggs in The Shining or the historical details of Barry Lyndon.

Personally, I find the diehard Stanley Kubrick fans that are obsessed with combing every detail of every one of his films to be the most interesting people. Sometimes they make outrageous claims and their theories are incredibly forced, but I still find them to be fascinating and sometimes incredibly knowledgeable.
The EWS folks have a lot in common with hardcore Boards Of Canada fans. I fall in to the unique Venn Diagram of people that love BoC’s music, Kubrick’s films and Eyes Wide Shut as a standalone entity outside of Kubrick's filmography. About three months ago I joined the Boards Of Canada Reddit group and immediately made the correlation between those people and EWS people.

For those that aren’t familiar with Board of Canada - they’re an electronic music duo from Scotland that relies heavily on Easter eggs, half-truths, occult imagery and anonymity. One could make a fairly easy argument that these elements describe both Kubrick and Eyes Wide Shut.

Occult man-made circles, pentagrams, hexagrams, stars and other images are often associated with BoC’s music and Eyes Wide Shut.


Obsessive fandom can sometimes be incredibly informative even if they're base is rooted in batshit crazy theories. I do think it’s important to be overly familiar with Stanley Kubrick’s filmography and style of filmmaking when dissecting Eyes Wide Shut. He’s famous for his attempts at accuracy, OCD-like work-rate and avoiding continuity errors. This makes his work more intriguing in my older age because for someone so supposedly obsessed with “perfection”, there are a lot of possible plot holes and intentional continuity errors in some of his films. I like to think that Kubrick has been messing with his audience on purpose much like how most of the characters surrounding Dr. Harford in the story of Traumnovelle/Eyes Wide Shut have been messing with him (and how Boards of Canada loves to mess with their fans).


The first two adaptions of Traumnovelle are lesser known because they're basiclly B-movies. And on a personal note - they just aren’t very good (the 1983 Italian iteration is quite goofy). The most recent adaptation isn’t good either but it’s kind of fascinating for a variety of reasons.

On one hand, Dream Story is trying to stay true to the source material but with a modern twist. The basic premise is still there. A doctor stumbles upon multiple levels/worlds of sexual perversions after his ego is bruised from learning that his wife has sexual desires for another man (an underground organization of powerful elites may or may not be behind a chunk of the doctor’s discoveries). It’s best to not judge this movie from the trailer. It looks like an SNL skit parodying Eyes Wide Shut. On some level Dream Story does try to take from Kubrick's adaptation but there are some differences.
This time around director Florian Frerichs throws in more surreality, elaborate dream sequences and elements of S&M that aren’t in the other movie adaptions. Eyes Wide Shut certainly plays around with reality and throws in a dream sequences/fantasy, but it’s not the same. Dreams Story has total breaks in reality way more frequently. But because Eyes Wide Shut is also a modern retelling of Traumnovelle starring two major movie stars directed by one of the most legendary filmmakers - Dream Story will always be in the shadow of Kubrick.

Eyes Wide Shut aside, Dream Story does itself no favors. The acting is flat, the chemistry between the actors is almost non existent and Florian Frerichs clearly takes from Eyes Wide Shut as if we don't see it. Sometimes word for word! This is fascinating to me. Has there ever been a cinematic remake/adaptation/reinterpretation that tries to stay true to the original literary source material but also lifts/borrows/steals/copies from one of a previous cinematic iteration? Maybe John Carpenter's The Thing? 


Dream Story is really only made for people that are Traumnovelle/Eyes Wide Shut completists or folks that stay up late and watch random stuff on tubi when they can't sleep. I guess I’m somewhere in between.

SIDEWALK STORIES

I suppose the most alarming takeaway from Charles Lane’s Sidewalk Stories is that even though it was a remake of an almost 70 year old film at the time (Charlie Chaplin’s The Kid), the basic premise still applied to late 1980’s New York City. Lane never shied away from his giant homage to Chaplin but the bigger emphasis was on poverty and how bad it was even in the modern era. The cast of Sidewalk Stories is mostly Black so you could delve deeper in to race but a lot of the supporting and background characters are mostly white. Charles Lane has absolutely explored issues concerning race in his other works but I honestly don’t think this was his goal here. I think he was trying to make a general observation about poverty in the modern era and how it effects everyone.

There really isn’t much left to say about this movie after 35+ years. All the interesting and insightful stuff has been said. Outside of the race of the main characters there really isn’t anything different between Sidewalk Stories and The Kid. It’s essentially shot for shot. I don’t have anything new and/or profound to add.

What hasn’t been touched on a whole lot are the film’s influences outside of The Kid and the later films it would go on to influence. I find all that stuff interesting. Sidewalk Stories is a visual film and it hasn't really been looked at through that lens.

It [SIDEWALK STORIES] definitely came from THE KID - Charles Lane, hiddenfilms.com

The Kid / Sidewalk Stories 

The Kid /
Sidewalk Stories 

The Kid / Sidewalk Stories 

The Kid /
Sidewalk Stories 

The Kid /
Sidewalk Stories 

The Kid /
Sidewalk Stories 

A common theme of silent cinema was poverty. Even if you aren’t a silent movie aficionado, close your eyes right now and think about the basic elements of a standard 1920s silent movie. Scraps of bread, dirty faces, holes in shoes, winos, etc.

Sidewalk Stories is really one giant homage to the silent genre.

homelessness was the thing that made me make the film - Charles Lane, moveablefest.com

Menilmontant / Sidewalk Stories 

Speedy / Sidewalk Stories

The Gold Rush / Sidewalk Stories 

The Gold Rush / Sidewalk Stories 

It should also be noted that Sidewalk Stories was a sequel to a lesser seen short film that Lane made in film school which was also an homage to the silent genre and laid the groundwork for his debut feature…

The Gold Rush / A Place In Time

The Gold Rush / A Place In Time

Sidewalk Stories was sort of a difficult film to track down for years but one huge momentary positive about the popularity of The Artist (2011) is that the director Michel Hazanavicius supposedly credited Lane’s Sidewalk Stories as a major influence. This brought some attention to the underseen film. I say supposedly because while Indiewire, Film Comment, TIFF, The Atlantic and more all say this - I haven’t actually found a direct quote from Hazanavicius himself. Film critic Ashley Clarke did note that Sidewalk Stories had a series of screenings in France in 2002 which is where Hazanavicius may have seen it.

Sidewalk Stories /

The Artists

Sidewalk Stories /

The Artists

Lane would eventually acknowledge The Artist and it's similarities to his movie...

Now that Sidewalk Stories is finally on a proper blu-ray you should check it out if you haven’t…

HIGHEST 2 LOWEST

After my first viewing of this movie I knew something was way off. I tried to give it the benefit of the doubt because most new movies aren’t good these days and I’m tired of it. This was the first new movie I watched where I didn’t have the urge to shut it off like I did so many other recent release I’ve seen (Weapons, 28 Years Later, Wolfman, etc). Highest 2 Lowest kept my attention the entire time and I was invested in the story. It was like - yeah, this movie is a huge mess but I didn’t totally hate it (I don’t think that’s a glowing review).

Then I went to sleep, woke up, and watched it again. It’s pretty clear - this is a huge mess.

Some folks are treating Highest 2 Lowest like it’s the worst thing Spike Lee has ever done (it’s not). This movie is bad but there’s a lot to talk about. That’s something, right? On the other hand you have folks that are convinced this is one of his best projects in a long time (it’s certainly better than Chi-Raq or Redhook Summer but that’s not really saying much). People have this habit of over praising late period disaster pieces from living legend filmmakers. We’re seeing it with Ridley Scott, Michael Mann, Francis Ford Coppola and more. I guess Spike Lee is the latest addition to that list. 

This is one of those movies that’s a big mess but I didn’t feel like my time was wasted watching it. I’m saying that genuinely. If I have a lot to say about a movie then something was gained, right? The story, very loosely based on Akira Kurosawa’s High & Low, is about a botched kidnapping that connects to the music industry. Denzel Washington’s “David King” is at the center of it all.

When it comes to remakes, Spike has never stayed completely true to the source material and this is no exception. Don’t expect a faithful adaptation. Besides the basic plot, Lee does tip his hat to Kurosawa in cute little ways throughout the movie…

The biggest problem here is that Spike Lee shows his age. And not in a wise way. Between his age and wealth he’s out of touch to some degree. This is kind of ironic because the film’s protagonist, David King, is also somewhat out of touch for the same reasons. King living high above everybody in his penthouse (like Spike Lee in real life) over all the little people has disconnected him from everyday average life. He handles and trades millions of dollars on a regular basis, gets driven everywhere and owns priceless art. Now…to some people that’s all you need to achieve the “Black excellence” title which is very surface-level to me. This movie has a lot of that.

What I mean by “surface-level” is that all throughout the movie Spike Lee injects images of famous Black figures folks like James Brown, Muhammad Ali, Jimi Hendrix and others. There’s even a scene in the movie where one of the supporting actors quite literally says; “Black Excellence” in a very forced way. That kind of stuff always seems to please the modern Black audience. It doesn’t matter if the movie is good or not. As long as recognizable Black actors are in it and they play rich people - that’s enough. Black excellence, right? It’s like success through how much money you have or have access to is the most important factor. Folk are more invested in Jay-Z being a billionaire than they are investing their own community. At a certain point, “Black Excellence” morphs in to this unhealthy obsession over status and rich celebrities that don’t even know you exist. One of the biggest underlying themes in this movie is rich older black people represent “good” and poor young Black people represent “bad”. I don’t think this was done intentionally but what’s done is done. There is very much a “pull up your pants, young man!” type of vibe all throughout Highest 2 Lowest. Dare I say it's anti-rap/anti-hip hop?

To be fair, this is the best-looking Spike Lee film in a long time. But, and not to keep using this phrase, that’s only surface-level. Visuals only go so far. A lot of the fundamental stuff like the performances and the believability of it all just aren’t there. ASAP Rocky plays a rapper named “Yung Felon”. I’m sorry but while there are plenty of rappers with the Young/Yung moniker, “Yung Felon” sounds like a made up rap name your boomer parents would make up to laugh at. Or a character Keenan Thompson would play in a bad SNL skit that parodies hip-hop. Again - this is Spike Lee showing his age by telling the younger generation to just pull their pants up. 

It’s been said to me a few times already that I’m being too nice about my assessment of this movie. But in all of it’s goofy bullshit and cringey nonsense, I was invested from start to finish even though the last 25 minutes weren’t necessary. There’s almost always been a dream-like fantasy quality to all of Spike Lee’s films. He presents Brooklyn, New York, Chicago, College Campuses, etc with these accentuated colors, whimsical cinematography and overwhelming orchestral music. In Highest 2 Lowest Spike Lee does this with The Bronx. It’s almost like you’re watching a musical without the musical numbers. The problem is there’s things in this movie that are supposed to be rooted in reality and taken completely seriously. Spike Lee’s mix of fantasy and reality don’t mix here. I’m sorry but are we supposed to believe a group of young Bronx criminals (or anyone for that matter) could pull off a 17.5 million kidnap/heist under the circumstances presented in the film? Although, *SPOILERS*, by the time the plan unfolds you’ll see that they do essentially handle it like a bunch of untrained criminals. In another chase scene we’re supposed to believe Denzel’s David King can hold his own in fist fight against someone half his age on a moving train (was the finale supposed to be an homage to Denzel in Unstoppable?)

Both chase scenes in the movie do this sort of smoke and mirrors thing that make you think you’re entertained or on the edge of your seat when you’re in the moment. But once you have a few seconds to think about it you realize it’s all just so silly.

At the end of the day I do wish I saw this on the big screen instead of through Apple TV. It may not have been good but it felt grand. I think part of the reason I’m not completely unloading on this movie is that I’ve essentially grown up with Spike Lee’s films since School Daze. The 80’s. I sort of know what to expect in all of his movies on some level so when he is predictable or lacks subtlety or does something corny, it doesn’t really bother me as much as someone that’s maybe 20 years younger than me. 

This was still a bit unnecessary…

Unfortunately my expectations for Spike Lee’s films are now very very low.

BETTER THAN HITCHCOCK: PASSION (THE PINK SMOKE)

I had a lot of fun writing my latest piece on Brian DePalma's Passion for The Pink Smoke. Click the link below to go to the article and please understand that my views on Alfred Hitchcock aren't as disrespectful as they may sound.

enjoy...

DA SWEET BLOOD OF JESUS (CutPrintFilm)

Hey all,

check out my review of Spike Lee's latest film Da Sweet Blood Of Jesus over at CutPrintFilm.com

it's currently available on Vimeo.com

DOUBLE FEATURE: PRINCE AVALANCHE & BERBERIAN SOUND STUDIO

These two films may not have much in common to you all but to me they share a few connections. Both Prince Avalanche & Berberian Sound Studio represent "the return" of two separate groups of artists who I love/loved very much. With Prince Avalanche, this was a return to form for director David Gordon Green & his cinematographer; Tim Orr, while Bereberian Sound Studio represented Broadcast's return to recording music after the passing of their lead singer. Both films are also about loneliness among men to a certain extent, and lets also not forget these were both released last year and are set in the past...

PRINCE AVALANCHE

Immediately after posting on facebook about how pleased I was with Prince Avalanche, PINNLAND EMPIRE contributor Matt Reddick's girlfriend; Catalina, noted the film's serious bromantic quality which brought me to the realization that David Gordon Green doesn't get enough recognition for his exploration into the world of male bonding. This lack of recognition is partially his fault due to his last two films being quite bad which turned a lot of people off to his work (myself included). But prior to Your Highness & The Sitter almost every film he made dealt with friendships between males of various ages (All The Real Girls, George Washington & Pineapple Express) or the bond between brothers (Undertow). Hell, even Your Highness is about bonding between two brothers when you really think about it.

Prince Avalanche fits right in with the rest of Green's filmography more than anything he's done in quite some time.

No matter how Malick-ian & artsy Green's past work was, he always expressed the desire to want to make a comedy since he first started making movies (refer to his Charlie Rose Interview back in 2000). It's just his previous two comedies were awful. With Prince Avalanche it seems like he's found a balance. On one hand he went back to the beautiful sprawling cinema he was once known for over a decade ago while at the same time still holding on to the comedic elements that he's been exploring for the last six years.
Prince Avalanche feels like a mixture of All The Real Girls and Pineapple Express (Gordon's one & only successful comedy in my opinion). Paul Rudd & Emile Hirsch's chemistry is pretty similar to Rogen & Franco - the grumpy cynic (Rogen/Rudd) constantly fussing at the dopey idiot (Franco/Hirsch) which is a relationship that dates back to the first comedic duos of stage. And certain moments in Prince Avalanche felt like extensions (or deleted moments) from All The Real Girls. There's an exchange of dialogue between Paul Rudd & Emile Hirsch in Prince Avalanche that reminded of a quote Shea Whigham delivers to Paul Schnieder in All The Real Girls...

Lance (Emile Hirsch): At least I don't go around thinking I'm a great dancer when I actually stink at dancing

Alvin (Paul Rudd): You've never even seen me dance

Lance: I've seen you do a lot of things when you don't think I'm looking

 - Prince Avalanche

Tip (Shea Whigham): No, we ain't friends no more! ...YOU AIN'T EVEN IN MY TOP 10! 

-All The Real Girls

You have to remember that both scenes I just quoted involve grown men. There's something incredibly funny, sad & intriguing about that. Its like David Gordon Green knows there's this level of immaturity that men will never lose no matter how much we age.
When I watch how grown men interact with one another in Green's work I'm sometimes reminded of John Cassavetes, Peter Falk & Ben Gazzara in Husbands...

BRO-ING OUT: MALE BONDING IN THE CINEMA OF DAVID GORDON GREEN...

George Washington (2000)

Undertow (2004)

Pineapple Express (2009)

Prince Avalanche (2013)

I have to give Green credit for crafting a solid film centered around two traditionally frustrating cinematic archetypes: "the idiot" (Emile Hirsch) and "the unpleasant cynic" (Paul Rudd). But in the case of Prince Avalanche, Green twists the screws a little bit and makes Hirsch's idiot character ("Lance") not only stupid but also without much of a conscience (at one point in the film he openly brags about sleeping with his best friend's girlfriend without fully realizing how fucked that is). And Paul Rudd's "Alvin" is one of those unpleasant people who only knows how to communicate through negativity and is just someone you don't want to be around for more than 20 minutes (he's easily agitated for no good reason, prefers to be depressed & lonely and he almost never smiles). And with the exception of two other supporting characters who show up sparingly, Alvin & Lance are all we have to deal with for pretty much the entire film.

Set in the late 80's, Prince Avalanche (a loose remake of the 2011 Icelandic film; Either Way) is the story of Alvin (Rudd) & Lance (Hirsch) - two road workers at odds with each other doing repair to a highway that's been severely damaged by a massive flash fire. Their job, which pretty much consists of painting the yellow divider lines in the middle of a long stretch of highway, forces Alvin & Lance to be away from home for days at a time. Alvin is currently going through a rough break up with his ex, who just so happens to be Lance's sister. As I already said, Alvin is a pretty unhappy guy with no friends who isolates himself from the world (we get the sense he's always been a pretty negative person which is what led to his break up) while Lance is a dopey guy in his early 20's more concerned with women and dreams of leaving his small town for "the big city". As the story progresses, tension in each of their separate personal lives comes to a head along with their relationship with each other. Do they work things out and become buddies or not?
In my opinion, David Gordon Green does Either Way justice with his remake. He maintains the same sparse ambiance and uses the same type of awkward adult humor. Hirsch & Rudd even deliver some of the same dialogue from Either Way line for line a couple of times.
I don't know if I'd label this a dark comedy like so many others have been so quick to do. While Prince Avalanche has plenty of funny moments, there's also just as many serious and/or touching moments that balance everything out making this David Gordon Green's first true dramedy (there's a difference between the two genres). Paul Rudd has worked outside of comedy in the past but this is probably the best non outright comedic performance he's ever given (he really channeled his performance from the 2007 dramedy; Diggers).

Visually, Prince Avalanche is the best looking thing Tim Orr has shot for Green since All The Real Girls. Once again, Orr makes rural/nowhere U.S.A. look nice & calm. There's also a couple of editing moments that are very reminiscent of recent Terrence Malick (specifically The New World & To The Wonder) which was ultimately what showed me that Green had returned to his old style while at the same time still growing and trying out new things as a filmmaker (for those who only started following his post-Pineapple Express work, Green was very much influenced by Malick in the first half of his career)

BERBERIAN SOUND STUDIO

Not since Judgement Night (1993) had I been more initially excited about an original soundtrack more than the actual film the soundtrack was intended for. Ever since the untimely passing of Broadcast's lead singer Trish Keenan, I wondered if one of my all time favorite bands would call it quits. Even though they've experimented with instrumental music in the past (Microtronics 1& 2) it was Keenan's voice that really made them so great. But the score they put together for Peter Strickland's Berberian Sound Studio is proof that the remaining members can still make great music even without Keenan's presence (I sincerely hope they don't ever try to find a new lead vocalist because it just wouldn't be the same).

If you refer to my review of 12 Years A Slave you'll recall my growing annoyance with those Hans Zimmer/Howard Shore-style film scores. If I see a slave being brutally beaten on screen (like Chewital Ejiofor in 12 Years A Slave) I don't need the heavy handed string music blasted directly in to my ear to remind me that I should feel sad. I know how and what to feel without the added music. Thankfully quite a few filmmakers in 2013 turned to contemporary musicians for more ambient/non-traditional music than any recent year I can think. The Place Beyond The Pines (Mike Patton), Only God Forgives (Cliff Martinez), Berberian Sound Studios (Broadcast), etc. and even though Shane Caruth isn't on the same level as the aforementioned musicians, his work on Upstream Color was great too. Its not like this is some new phenomena. Almost all of Jim Jarmusch's films are scored by contemporary musicians (Tom Waits, John Lurie, Rza & Neil Young), Claire Denis practically works exclusively with various combinations of The Tindersticks lineup and Olivier Assayas has used Sonic Youth a couple of times. But 2013 seemed to be a mini-explosion of contemporary musicians scoring films.

Broadcast's sound is perfect for cinema. They often incorporate visuals in to their live performances and their retro sound is reminiscent of old 60's films like Blow-up which, coincidentally, is a film that had an obvious influence on Berberian Sound Studio.

I know it seems strange that I spent a good portion of 2013 listening to a film score without seeing the film but I was so disappointed by a lot of what I saw last year that I thought Berberian Sound Studio would be just another letdown. The reason I finally got around to watching it is because it landed on a few "best of..." lists in the contributors section of my end of the year wrap-up and its been compared to classic works like The Conversation & Blowout..
After finally watching this (courtesy of Netflix Instant) it makes sense that Berberian Sound Studio is being compared too and group in with The Conversation & Blowout by just about every movie critic out there. All three films are neo-noirs/mysteries about sound engineers in situations that get way out of hand. But to me, Berberian Sound Studio also feels like a mixture of Barton Fink & Roman Coppola's underrated CQ. If you're familiar with either of those films then you know that they're also heavily influenced works. With Barton Fink you have the obvious Eraserhead influence, while CQ is an homage to everything from Roger Corman B-movies & Italian horror films (like in Berberian Sound Studio) to European art house. Like Black Dynamite or Nicolas Winding Refn's Drive & Only God Forgives, Berberian Sound Studio is another retro "movie mixtapes"/movie collage, although slightly less obvious with the movie references...

Berberian Sound Studio / Barton Fink

In Berberian Sound Studios, Toby Jones plays "Gilderoy" - a British sound engineer hired to work on the post-production of a low budget Italian giallo film ("The Equestrian Vortex") in the vein of the style of Mario Bava or Dario Argento. The minute Gilderoy arrives at the Italian movie studio (Bereberian Sound Studio) we realize that he's out of his element. His timid nature causes him to be bullied around by the loud, boisterous, passionate Italians he's working alongside, there's clearly some inner turmoil between the cast & crew which he's now in the middle of, someone is trying to sabotage the film and it's also heavily implied that Glideroy has never worked on a low budget horror movie before. This immediately reminded me of the basic plot to Barton Fink - an off-Broadway New York City playwright (John Turturro) is hired to come out to "Hollyweird" to write b-movie screenplays. And the idea of a foreigner going over to another country to work on the post production of a sabotaged European B-movie is part of the basic plot to CQ. And like CQ, Berberian Sound Studio is a film within a film that's also about the making of a film that schools the audience on the little tricks that went on behind the scenes in order make a cheap movie come to life.
Through the course of the film Gilderoy becomes more & more uncomfortable working at Berberian Sound Studio and he starts to sense that the same mysterious force that's trying to sabotage the film hes working on is also out to sabotage him. There's no visible or immediate threat (outside of the Italians who dislike him for no legitimate reason) but you do start to feel that there's something creepy out to get him. ...Or is there?
Berberian Sound Studio is the kind of psychological thriller in the vein of Fear X or The Tenant where the longer you watch the more you start to question if our main character is really in trouble or slowly going insane. This is the part of the story that I thought got wrapped up a little too quickly. In the last 20 minutes Peter Strickland does a Demonlover/Mulholland Drive to the plot and we're given a sudden twist that felt hurried & rushed. This is a very entertaining film but parts of it felt kind of empty. There seemed to be more effort put in to the style and ambiance and less in to the story. I thought the sudden plot twist/split personality angle was unnecessary. Stirckland could have kept things more straightforward/based in reality like Blowout or The Conversation which I found to be a lot more effective in the end. I don't mean to insult Berberian Sound Studio because, again, I did enjoy it overall, but part of it felt like Peter Strickland couldn't come up with a good enough ending so he threw a hail mary and just decided to make things surreal & Lynchian at the last minute.
This makes the Coen Brothers influence even more evident given that's a common thing they love to do when they cant end a film. SNAP!

I was surprised to learn that director Peter Strickland wasn't a music video director prior to becoming a filmmaker given his emphasis on style over plot which is a trait many music video-turned movie directors have (Anton Corbijn, Mark Romenak, Jonathan Glazer, etc). Even David Fincher, Michel Gondry & Spike Jonze (who all got their start making music videos) get caught up in that from time to time. I think if Peter Strickland hooked up with a talented screenwriter he'd find that one key element that's missing.
But with all that being said, I still highly recommend this for anyone who loves old Italian horror films, psychological thrillers or Roman Polanski. Actually, this is a role I could see Roman Polanski playing. Toby Jones' performance, which is really good, did remind me of Polanski in The Tenant in certain parts.
No matter how empty some of the story may be, this is the kind film that's bound to bring up the kind of discussion brought on by films like Mulholland Drive, 3 Women, Black Swan, Persona, The Tenant or any other film that deals with split personalities, pressure, broken dreams, loneliness, being consumed by the art you create or all of the above.

MANIAC: THIS MOVIE HAD NO BUSINESS BEING THIS GOOD

What if the driver character from Drive, only this time played by Elijah Wood instead of Ryan Gosling, was a tormented serial killer with social anxiety disorder and mommy issues in the vein of Buffalo Bill (The Silence Of The Lambs) or The Tooth Fairy (Manhunter)? Sounds strange right? That's pretty much the vibe of the 2013 Maniac remake...
I was going to wait to write about this for my end of the year review, which I’ve been working on steadily these last few weeks, but Maniac kinda deserves its own separate write-up. Its an interesting film to say the least. Even though it doesn’t exactly fit right in with stuff like House Of The Devil & The Innkeeper, which I’ve also recently watched at the suggestion of PINNLAND EMPIRE contributor; Doug Frye, Maniac is another example of this new resurgence in 70’s & 80’s-style horror/slasher films.
Criticisms of the Maniac remake ranged from; "Why remake a cult classic?" to "Elijah Wood as a serial killer? Yeah, right..." Let’s get a couple of things clear - The original Maniac isn’t very good to begin with. Sorry, but it's not. It isn’t some sacred cow that shouldn’t be messed with. Sometimes bad movies are mistakenly labeled as "cult movies" which gives them a free pass to be...bad. "Who cares if there's a boom mic in the shot? It’s a cult movie!" or "So what if the acting is a little bad. It’s supposed to be. It’s a cult movie!" And that’s certainly the case with the original 1980 Maniac – the simple story of a schizophrenic serial killer, "Frank Zito", who targets women. In my opinion, this new adaptation stays true to the basic plot but does make a few noticeable changes, specifically the cinematography which is shot directly from Elijah Wood's point of view half the time just like Enter The Void except not as shaky & nauseating (we only see Wood in reflections and through the point of view of the women he’s killing). I'm not exactly sure what’s so “classic” about the original (and yes, I've heard it referred to as a classic before). It’s a movie about a guy who goes around killing women. There were far too many films in the early 80's that essentially made entertainment out of violence against women at a time when real violence against women seemed to be at an all-time high: Maniac, Henry, Angst, White Of The Eye, etc. Sure some of these films are actually pretty good (White Of The Eye & Angst) but at the end of the day there’s a slightly sadistic quality to all of ‘em. The only two filmmakers to really counter this explosion of early/mid-80’s violence against women were Abel Ferrara with Mrs. 45 & Bette Gordon with Variety (the irony of course is that prior to Ms. 45, Abel Ferrara made The Driller Killer which kinda fits right in with the aforementioned films I’m criticizing). Oh wait, does Death Wish count?
Its nice to see this story redone in a different era with a slightly different twist to it. Sure, at the end of the day filmmakers should look to an original idea first before doing a remake but not all remakes are actually bad (Let Me In, Solaris, Funny Games, etc). More times than not, remakes do turn out to be pointless or not as good as the original but if we blindly hate on every remake before we actually see it, we could miss out on the occasional gem. I honestly couldn’t imagine life without watching Soderbergh’s adaptation of Solaris from time to time.

Sin City (2005)

As far as Elijah Wood playing a serial killer goes - you DO realize that most serial killers (outside of figures like Edmund Kemper or Richard Ramirez) usually don’t look the part, right? If you saw Jeffery Dahmer or Charles Ng on the street you'd probably walk right past them and not think anything or assume they were wimps. So casting the non-intimidating Elijah Wood in the title role of “Frank Zito” makes perfect sense (I just hope Wood didn't think by doing a dark indie that it would make him seem edgy or show his range as an actor. I seriously hope not). Right off the bat this version of Maniac has something over the original. The original “Maniac” in the 1980 film, played by Joe Spinell (the late iconic character actor from The Godfather 2, Cruising & the Rocky films, who also wrote the original Maniac story) was a big menacing guy who looked like a legitimate serial killer to begin with. If someone, especially a woman walking by herself at night, saw him they’d immediately cross the street or even run. In real life he wouldn’t get the chance to get close or ask a woman for the time in an effort to get her guard down and chloroform her. That’s what makes Elijah Wood such a good casting choice. He’s the last person you’d expect to be a serial killer. He has a way better advantage at getting close to women which the film plays off of. In this updated version of Maniac, Frank uses speed dating & online dating as a way of getting close to women. Ladies, be honest – if you went to a speed dating function or saw a picture of Elijah Wood on a dating site, you’d let your guard down at the sight of that face, wouldn’t you?
And lets also not forget that Wood played "Kevin" in Sin City back in 2005 so this isn’t his first time playing a psycho serial killer who targets women. There are actually quite a few similarities between Frank & Kevin. Not only do they target women exclusively, but they also behead them. In Sin City, Kevin/Wood is surrounded by his headless victims as trophies. In Maniac, Frank/Wood surrounds himself with female mannequins as well as a trophy room full of his female victims’ heads...

I admit that I quickly dismissed Maniac when it played at IFC this past year (I was intrigued for a second but that curiosity soon went away). But after hearing how surprisingly not bad it was by a few reputable sources, I gave it a chance on Netflix instant and it actually didn’t suck when it damn well should have. I know a movie shouldn’t get praise for not sucking, but this really had no business being a good/entertaining film and it was. So many odds we stacked against it and managed to rise above. ...Kinda. Unlike the original, this version of Maniac is slightly tongue in cheek and intentionally cheesy at times which makes it easier for me to enjoy it. This isn’t exactly a dark comedy, but the filmmakers & cast clearly had a hidden smirk on their face while making this. They had to. The acting is over the top, the delivery of Wood’s dialogue sounds like its being read directly from a piece paper and the scenarios in the film seem intentionally cliché – The women that Wood goes on (first) dates with invite him up to their apartments way too easily. I don’t care if the character Wood is playing seems harmless. I find it hard to believe that so many women would be so quick to hook up with a random stranger. And are women still seriously walking alone in dark alleys in movies these days? There’s too many intentionally weak points in the story for this to be taken 100% seriously (I’m afraid to read any interviews on this film out of fear that filmmaker; Frank Khalfoun really does want us to take his Maniac remake completely serious).

The synth-heavy soundtrack, which is very reminiscent of Drive, makes it even more enjoyable. I recently wrote another installment in the “Whole History Of My Life” series for The Pink Smoke on Nicolas Winding Refn’s underrated Fear X, so I’ve been immersed in his cinema for the last couple of months (I ended up writing so much unused/excess material for the Fear X piece that it turned in to a separate review on his Pusher sequel which you’ll read in January). Whether you like Refn or not, Bronson & Drive have been quite influential in the last couple of years and Maniac is a prime example. Besides the synthesized score (analog synths are making a comeback in cinema), just look at the movie poster. Doesn’t this remind you of Drive?

I realize that being influenced by Refn really means that you’re influenced by early Michael Mann, but most people are turning to Drive quicker then they’re turning to Thief & Manhunter. No, I guess that’s not a good thing, but it is what it is…

I'm still a little torn about this film because no matter how tongue-in cheek or aware of itself Maniac may be, it could still be seen as sexist entertainment as the story is still based around a serial killer who targets women. There's even those cliché scenes, which we see in almost every single serial killer film, where the psycho protagonist has the tormented flashback of his dysfunctional mother and we're almost supposed to feel a little sympathy for him and understand why he became a serial killer in the first place. Part of me also feels like Maniac is not only trying to capitalize off of Drive but it’s also stealing a few pages out of American Psycho (crazy angry white guys killing women) as well as Enter The Void. Refn isn’t the only modern filmmaker to put an emphasis on dark lighting, neon-lights & synthesizers. In my opinion, the cinema of Gaspar Noe, although less “popular”, has a connection to Refn’s work in terms of style.
But at the end of the day this film managed to be pretty good when it should have been awful. I've actually watched it twice so that counts for something.

THE TORONTO VAULT VOL. 2: FAUST (SOKUROV'S MISUNDERSTOOD MASTERPIECE)

I’m not a TIFF Vet like my buddies John & Chris but at this point I know enough to know that around the end of day 4/beginning of day 5 of the festival all the movies start to meld together and you feel like you’re watching one mediocre day-long movie. Faust was the last memorable film that I saw at the festival in 2011 before everything started to get all jumbled (and almost anything is enjoyable after just sitting through Rampart).

Apparently winning best picture at a major festival like Venice doesn't always guarantee that a film will get a descent run in theaters (art house theaters, but still…). Such as the case with Alexander Sokurov's latest; Faust - another retelling/reworking of the famous tale of Faust's quest/struggle to find ultimate enlightenment and the deal he makes with Mephistopheles. To my knowledge this hasn't been released yet outside of festivals & special screenings. Maybe I’m being a bit naïve but I assumed that Sokurov’s recent stuff like Russian Ark (a feature length film shot in one take) & his “power trilogy” (Moloch, Taurus & The Son) had solidified his spot in the art house cinemas but I guess not. In my opinion Sokurov has reached “master auteur” status (if you refer to 5 Questions with Guy Maddin, he considers Sokurov to be the best active filmmaker around) and Faust felt kinda special to me as this was the FIRST film of his I saw on the big screen. This version of Faust isn't your typical German fairytale. Even though this made my top 10 in 2011 it's still not the easiest thing to sit through. This Faust is a world full of deformed characters (in this version, Mephistopheles reveals that his penis is located on the back of his gross pear/squash-shaped body. ...yeah), the creepiest homunculus of ALL the Faust films and dissected bodies (in one of the film's earliest scenes we see Faust inspecting the inside of a body he's just cut open in order to find where the "soul" is). This almost doesn't feel like an adaptation. It’s as if Sokurov brought Faust, Mephistopheles, Gretchen and all the other characters into HIS dreamy world of dense beauty & intentionally slightly un-synced audio where everything feels just a bit...off.
In 2011 much was made of Terrence Malick's Tree Of Life and I couldn't help but think that if there was a place in theaters for that - then why not Faust? Both films have a similar disorienting vibe, deal with vague subjects & issues like; science (on some level) & the origin of life and both films have what many believe to be hidden messages. With Tree Of Life it was the message of Christianity, religion & evangelism whereas with Faust it was apparently a hidden message about Russia’s integration with the rest of Europe (honestly…I don’t see it, but that’s what people are saying).

While Faust shares a strange & unexpected connection with the cinema of Terrence Malick in terms of content, it also shares a connection with Post Tenebras Lux in terms of style & execution. Faust & Post Tenebras Lux, which are both directly inspired by the cinema of Tarkovsky (as well as psychotropic drugs) are two of the few recent works that come the closest to conveying the feel of an actual dream on the big screen.

If I had to describe Faust in one word it would be; dense – the kind of film that you make confused facial expressions at while watching it. On one hand, Faust is a beautiful & rich piece of art that almost feels like a moving painting. The costumes & set designs are excellent...

an appearance from Fassbinder regular; Hanna Schygulla

But on the other hand, Faust is dizzying & tough to watch in some parts (and not just the scenes of grotesque deformed bodies or the guts & organs we see in the beginning). It’s almost like watching an actual headache in the form of a movie (I realize the point of these write-ups are to shed a positive light on these mostly unseen films and I may have just turned you all off by that last statement, but it’s true). It’s a bit difficult to describe, but the ambiance of Faust was very very “thick” & cloudy in both the “feel” and the actual look. The beautiful Gothic-looking images & stills you may find on the Internet paint one picture but the actual moving images tell another story (look at the trailer at the bottom of the review). Sokurov used some kind of filter or special setting on the lens of the camera to give the film an intentionally blurry/cloudy perspective (like that feeling when you first wake up in the morning and haven’t rubbed your eyes yet). This is a challenging film to say the least. Not everyone is gonna wanna sit through something like this for OVER two hours (Faust clocks in at 134 minutes). Alexander Sokurov, who is an amazingly talented director with a unique style, is an acquired taste. Faust is a film that you have to ease in to and it should NOT be anyone’s introduction to his work (no matter how good it is). I genuinely found myself mumbling “…what the fuck?” under my breath more than once while watching this. Faust sometimes seems intentionally alienating. For such a dense, disorienting & trippy piece of work, it didn’t need to be as long as it was. I honestly can’t be mad at anyone if they don’t like this or need more than one sitting to finish it. Depending on the film you have to be kind of a trooper in order to make it all the way through some of Sokurov’s work and Faust REALLY weeds out the true fans (there were quite a few walkouts throughout the screening I attended).
But the beauty of the lead actress; Isolda Dychauk (who plays Gretchen) counters all the roughness & ugliness. Whenever Faust starts to become too much & unbearable her presence (just her face alone) calms the nerves and eases the anxiety that this film may bring on.

Faust might be the oldest and most adapted story in cinema (1926-2011). Every director that’s tackled it has told it in their own unique style. I'd been sitting on an unfinished proper length write-up of Sokurov's Faust for quite some time. Before finishing it off I sought out the original Murnau version and re-watched the Jan Svankmajer version last year at The Museum Of The Moving Image. Apparently there's an adaptation of Faust directed by Brian Yuzna (of Society fame) I still have yet to see. The Mephistopheles character has taken many different forms over the years...

Murnau (1926)

Gorski (1960)

Svankmajer (1994)

Sokurov (2011)

What is it about the story of Faust that has directors of almost every era since the silent era want to adapt this? I can still think of a few modern filmmakers that I'd personally like to see adapt this and put their own twist on it (Guy Maddin, Manuel De Oliviero & Catherine Breillat to name a few)

An interesting fact I recently learned about Faust is that it’s actually meant to be part of his “power trilogy" (which makes it a tetralogy I guess) but I honestly don’t see this fairy tale of a film fitting in with his biopics on Hitler (Moloch), Lenin (Taurus) & Hirohito (The Sun). Yes, Faust deals with similar themes & elements as Sokurov’s aforementioned works, like power & and the misuse of it, but Faust is a standalone work in his filmography. Faust pretty much became a misunderstood masterpiece before it even left the festival circuit. It has all the characteristics – a work of art to some and a piece of crap to others, frustrating to sit through yet rewarding at the same time and some attempt at originality.

WUTHERING HEIGHTS

Well thanks to a sneak preview, courtesy of BAM, I finally got to see Andrea Arnold's (loose) adaptation of Emily Bronte's classic story: Wuthering Heights - the doomed love story about Catherine Earnshaw and her mysterious adopted brother Heathcliff. And I don't use the term: “loose” simply because Heathcliff is black in this adaptation. Enough hoopla has already been made of that even before the film hit the festival circuit last year. Long before this version came out there’s been tons of speculation of Heathcliff’s ethnicity from gypsy to moor. The problem with Arnold’s version is that the ambiguous race thing gets distracting at times because it becomes more about race than it does the love story (although there is one interesting line in the film - "your mother must have been an African queen and your father a Chinese emperor”). Now...it’s been a while since I've read Wuthering Heights but I don't remember lines like; "Fuck you, you cunts" and I don't remember the Hindley character (Catherine's brother) being a modern day skinhead/football hooligan. That’s part of the problem with this adaptation of Wuthering Heights - It feels like a modern day remake trapped inside of a remake that’s trying to stay true to the original that’s trapped inside of a whole 'nother jungle fever/Othello/tragic interracial Romeo & Juliet love story with mumbly dialogue (sounds like a mouthful, huh?). I mean really tho, watching this kinda made me think; "is this is Wuthering Heights or Othello?" Now this isn't the first time a director has mixed modern day elements in to a period piece (Sofia Coppola's Marie Antoinette & Derek Jarman's Jubilee come to mind) so I'm not trying to crucify Arnold for doing something that other filmmakers have already been doing for decades. It just seriously didn't feel like I was in the 19th century while watching this. There are a few moments but overall it felt like the story took place today and the characters were just dressed up in dated clothes (which was my main complaint about Coppola's Marie Antoinette). In Arnold's version, almost 60% percent of the story focuses on Healthcliff & Catherine as kids and huge chunks of the rest of the story are left out (literary purists will probably be furious at this adaptation). This is a film that's been haunting me for over a year ever since I overslept through the screening at Toronto last year. As many of you who read this blog know, I'm an Andrea Arnold fan (mostly due to Red Road and her music selection in Fish Tank). For some reason I was expecting a masterpiece (or a misunderstood masterpiece) but what I got instead was a problematic, flawed film with a few beautiful elements (that we'll get in to later). Dammit, I wanted to love this. Chris Funderberg, who warned me about this, wasn't lying in his Sundance write-up. This IS a rough one to sit through- The lingering shots of bugs & mud started to get on my nerves and Its very difficult to understand what the actors are saying half the time due to a combination of mumbling & whispering on top of the thick accents.

At the Q&A after the screening, a silly & jetlagged Andrea Arnold brought up an interesting/reasonable point in reference to all the people who complained about her re-working and/or leaving out so many things from the book. Arnold's reasoning was that the original Wuthering Heights story is so complex and layered that it’s impossible to put all of that in to one film. I guess that’s Understandable (even if that didn’t seem to be a problem for all the other countless film adaptations of Wuthering Heights in the past). The problem I have with her saying that is the film is 130 minutes long, which is more than enough time to tell the bulk of the famous love story between Heathcliff & Catherine (in my opinion). It’s just strange that the adaptation of such a wordy book has hardly any WORDS in this new film version…you know what I mean? I would understand the reasoning/excuse from Arnold if the film wasn’t full of so much void space, dialogue-less moments or lingering/long unedited shots of bugs, animals, hills and the sky. Maybe if there wasn’t so much focus on those things, that some may consider unimportant, she could have used her 130 minutes to focus more on the story. So I’m not buying it. But at the same time, I don’t think that’s exactly what Arnold wanted to do so even if you don’t like this film you can’t exactly call it a total failure. Even though this isn’t the best thing she's done, I think it’s what she's been working for since the beginning of her career. The handheld/P.O.V. perspective that we saw in Wasp is magnified times 10 in Wuthering Heights. The element of the unspoken/conveying something without dialogue that we saw in Red Road was taken to another level in Wuthering Heights. Arnold’s focus/fascination with youth, seen in Fish Tank, is magnified in this adaptation of Wuthering Heights as the majority of the film focuses on Catherine & Heathcliff as children. On a side note, Wuthering Heights may make some of you uncomfortable as there’s tons of serious sexual tension between kids in this (there’s one moment where young Catherine is looking young Heathcliff up & down while biting her bottom lip like she’s sizing him up to make out). Other Arnold staples, like her love for animals, are found in the film as well (although I will say that if you are a hardcore animal lover you may wanna turn your head at certain parts). And with the exception of the song in the end (which felt very out of place), this is her first score-less feature unless you count the sounds of the wind and tree branches scratching up against the windows. Seriously, sometimes it felt like Arnold intentionally picked the windiest days to shoot some of the scenes. It’s like she put the boom mic right up to the wind and just hit record on extra loud. Given the film’s vibe & ambience, I wouldn’t have been opposed to a brian eno/cliff martinez-style score.

I AM an Andrea Arnold defender and there are a few things in this film that I liked. I did enjoy the cinematography overall (but after a while it starts to get a little droning and painful...I mean CUT already). If Arnold wanted to make a book of images & stills from this film and put it out I'd buy it without question. Somehow they managed to make depressing shit like endless rain, grey weather and heavy fog look beautiful...

On the other hand, the cinematography may make some dizzy after a while. The camera work is a little too free sometimes and you could get lost.

This adaptation of Wuthering Heights had..."something". Like, there was an honest attempt at trying to do something different but there was too much emphasis on the atmosphere, ambiance and "look" of the film and not enough attention to anything else. Behind all that thick fog is a pretty empty film.

There's something attractive and fascinating about this film’s cold, isolated, up-close & personal feel that I can’t completely put in to words. You just kinda have to see it to get what I mean. The sound of the wind that’s present through most of the film along with all the shots of the foggy mountains reminded me Valhalla Rising (minus the violence) and I like that kind of atmosphere a lot these days. For further examples check out; The Spirit Of The Beehive, The Nest, la Cienaga, Solaris (specifically the first 10-15 minutes), Japon or Once Upon A Time In Anatolia. The only difference is that these films pull that style off much better than Wuthering Heights. It’s more of a personal preference and I wouldn’t waste my time trying to defend it. I understand if people don’t like that stuff. Unfortunately cinematography and atmosphere is about all I can come up with in terms of things that I really liked about the film (and that’s still not enough). There aren’t any standout performances and there doesn’t seem to be much of a traditional script to comment on. Sure the young Heathcliff & Catherine do an ok job of expressing their fascination and love for one another, but then other times they have no chemistry at all (we all know that chemistry between actors is KEY in a film that doesn’t have a lot of dialogue). I guess if you haven’t figured it out by now - approach this film with caution.

There were just too many clichés that didn’t need to be there like the interracial love angle and the intolerant racist community that hated Heathcliff. Had the casting choices been different (possibly professional actors) and the racial angle been taken out, Arnold could have focused more on the angst and pain in the Wuthering Heights story. There was clearly an attempt at showing that pain of losing the one you love in the last 45 minutes of the film, but due to the actor’s poor/flat performances (especially the actor who played the older Heathcliff) it just didn’t work. I understand Arnold was trying to approach this adaptation differently, but it ended up backfiring. How many film adaptations have there been of Wuthering Heights already? It just makes things worse when unnecessary clichés are thrown in to a remake (which is kinda cliché in itself). We seem to be in an interesting era as far as cinema is concerned. Since the start of this new decade, some of the most talked about films have the most flaws and get the most boos yet manage to bring up more discussion and dialogue among film lovers than perfect/flawless masterpieces like The White Ribbon. Think about it - Uncle Boonmee, Black Venus, Tree Of Life, Post Tenebras Lux, Road To Nowhere, To The Wonder (which will probably split humanity right down the middle just like Tree Of Life did), etc. Even early "best of the decade" candidates like Once Upon A Time In Anatolia have drawn some serious haters. Just like Wuthering Heights, all these films could easily be described as tough or difficult to sit through yet they have "something". They bring out emotions in people (even if its intense hatred). These films have the same amount of haters as they do fans and both sides have valid arguments that make for endless debate & conversation. That’s a good thing as far as I'm concerned. I've had more fun writing about and discussing recent films I don’t like (Road To Nowhere) or am conflicted about (Tree Of Life & Wuthering Heights) than I do recent films I love unconditionally. It feels like I’ve either written about or mentioned the Tree Of Life on PINNLAND EMPIRE more than any other film in the last year and a half. It makes me wish certain directors, which could be described as "tough" or "challenging" like David Lynch, Lodge Kerrigan, the old Lynne Ramsay or the 2002-2007 Gus Van Sant were present right now.
In closing, I'll say it once again - approach Wuthering Heights, which opens at the film forum on Friday, with caution.