Hi all,I hope everyone is having a good start to the week,and last week I wrapped up my run:
Nordic 50's cinema:Part 2.
Elokuu (1956) 10
Speaking directly to the viewer confessing his most inner thoughts,Toivo Makela gives a superb performance as Viktor, whose voice over/narration Makela carries with a awareness of having let it all slip down the drain, and a belief of no hope in changing his ways. Plastering a thin wide grin across his face, Makela cracks open the damage being a alcoholic has done to Viktor, via a aggression barely kept under the surface from those who try to stop him taking a sip, and a dead-eyes emptiness when his reminiscing of the past, dries up at the sight of the present.
Capturing the misery Viktor places on her shoulders, Emma Vaananen gives a great turn as Saimi, who Vaananen has bring out spikes of determination to fight against Viktor's attempts to make his alcoholism be normalised. Bringing the audience to Viktor on the canal of F.E. Sillanpaa's novel, writer/director Matti Kassila's adaptation displays a outstanding thoughtfulness in the character studying of Viktor, whose alcoholism touches all of his family, each of whom Kassila opens up to the wear and tear that Viktor has done to each relationship of those who love him.
Going into the pre-drink flashbacks that Viktor is fondly looking back on, Kassila carefully keeps away from melancholy or romanticism of the past,instead walking on the line of starkly capturing all of the relationships and chances to turn a new leaf, which have been left in ruins by Viktor. Against the rustic rural backdrop Viktor and his family live in, director Kassila & cinematographer Esko Nevalainen beautifully scatter the flashbacks over as overlapping dissolves, presenting them not as fondly held memories, but as ghosts during the harvest month.
Sin Alley (1957) 8
Keeping Sven Gyldmark's slithering score limited to short bursts, co-directors Palle Kjærulff-Schmidt & Robert Saaskin are joined by cinematographer Rudolf Frederiksen in walking ahead of the French New Wave by a few years in their expert use of a realist soundtrack, filling the moments of silence from Anton walking down side-streets weighing up his options with lone cars passing by and mutterings of folks chatting outside pubs.
Visualising the precise audio design, the directors bring the refined stylisation of Film Noir and Melodrama out in the restrained tracking camera moves following Anton and the lads on the other side of the draped in long shadows tracks,and clipped panning shots in the bar where guys go for their pick-up. Walking in the clouds with Anton to a thinly-veiled Noir guise ending, the screenplay by Kjærulff-Schmidt brilliantly twists the high drama of teen rebellion movies and the loner state of Film Noir, into a fairly frank take on being gay.
Dropping the young, innocent Anton (played by a great, fresh face Ib Mossin) into mixing with the "wrong crowd" turning tricks, and learning how to hustle older clients. Whilst he has a girlfriend, the fatalistic dialogue Anton has plays on the double meaning of a Film Noir loner looking into the abyss, and of someone,who in the post-WWII era, is found by the cops to be a impressionable youth, who has fallen for the wrong crowd, when taking a walk on the wild side.
Lake of the Dead (1958) 8. Thanks to
manfromplanetx for awesome rec.
Simmering on top of the lake as a narration pours out of Sonja reading out the first draft of her husband Bernhard's occult novel, writer/director Kare Bergstrom & cinematographer Ragnar Sorensen cloud the lake with eerie Gothic Horror smoke on the water, going far-back in order to cover the screen in the isolated forest, where beams of lights across the cabin dwellers cast a ripple of the reflecting horror lit in misty superimposed images. Swimming towards Bernhard's novel, Bergstrom takes it out of the lake and into a Old Dark House atmosphere, where the confined large cabin setting is surrounded by excellent rustling outdoor sound effects, and wide, tightly-held corner shots light the cabin fever.
Based on lead actor Andre Bjerke (great as the slow-burn Mork) own novel,Bergstrom's adaptation delightfully carves into Norwegian wood thumbnail sketches of the tensions each group member brings to the cabin, with Liljan being given given a enticing, ghostly figure quality which the others in the cabin can't get too close to. Paging from Bernhard writing his novel to the story itself unfolding, Bergstrom merrily plays on the mythical element of Gothic Horror cinema, with a book-ending which rationalizes the occult myths which came out from the lake of the dead.
Raggare! (1959) 9.
Hanging in the back seat as the guys drive round for some cherries to pop, writer/director Olle Hellbom picks a rough and ready Punk Noir atmosphere off from the streets, gathering all the rebellious youth in a cramped cafe that Hellbom pans the camera across the cafe, capturing the cramped, pent-up tension between each gang.
Rocking Bibban between Roffe and Lasse, Hellbom rides them out to a shattering doom-laden final ride with excellent, drenched in shadow close-ups of Bibban eyeing her transformation from pretty young thing into a drained Femme Fatale, being seated next to the rogue, ruthless youthfulness of Roffe being pelted with lines of white lights unzipping each of his rough edges.
Unbuckling all the gangs hanging outside the cafe working on their cars/bikes, the screenplay by Hellbom superbly kicks-starts the troubled relationship between Roffe and Bibban with the spike of the youthful rebellion frustrations of the era, as Roffe hits out at anyone who tries to put limits on him, and becomes growing abusive over Bibban saying no.
Wonderfully contrasting the abrasiveness of Roffe, Hellbom gives the growing bond between Bibban and Lasse a sweet teenage innocence, sparkling in the crisp dialogue between the pair in car rides, driving towards love, before being taken by Roffe off the tracks. Hit by rocks of those who want to knock her down,Christina Schollin gives a outstanding Femme Fatale performance as Bibban, thanks to Schollin wearing a flirting, knife-edge rebellion streak, with a underlying romantic warmth for Lasse,away from the wild one.
Shudder exclusives:part 2.
Tigers Are Not Afraid (2017) 10
Spending time rehearsing the largely non- professional cast in workshops and not showing any of the young cast a complete script, writer/director Issa Lopez presents magnificent performances, via keeping the camera level with the orphans, and also skilfully knowing when to hold the camera back,and allow Estrella's friendship with Shine room to breath.
For the first non-Comedy movie she has done, writer/ director Lopez & cinematographer Juan Jose Saravia seamlessly blend the wisely limited use of CGI bringing the kids supportive plush toys to shining life, with the horror of Mexico's drug cartels, which are opened in fantastic long corridor tracking shots staying next to the kids in the hidden back alleyways of the cartels turf.
Bringing magical realism into the air when Estrella's teacher passes over three pieces of chalk that will grant her three wishes as they lay on the floor avoiding drug war gun fire, the screenplay by Lopez refreshingly does not sugar coat the orphaned children's dialogue, chopped up roughly of pieces from their homeless streets living and daily fights to avoid being killed by cartel gang members. Haunted by the disappearance of her mum, Estrella's friendship with Shine is built by Lopez on the harsh light their families have suffered as cartel victims, bound up by the help of plush toys opening the cages to freedom for these brave tigers.
Trivisa (2016) 5
Heading to 1997 from the opening clip of Thatcher presenting the one country, two systems deceleration, co-directors Jevons Au/Frank Hui and Vicky Wong impressively present a united vision in capturing underworld leaders feel the earth shaking beneath their feet in the run up to the Handover, via lean stilted wide-shots of gangs smuggling items to sell for huge profits on the mainland, returning to dusty, Neo-Noir neon-lit winding streets filled with a anxiety of the oncoming unknown.Breaking away from the adrenaline rush of the Heroic Bloodshed genre, the directors give the action scenes a brittle chalky atmosphere of straight, by the book kill shots, reflecting the professional way the gangsters hold themselves in.
Altering the real names of gangster Kwai Ping-hung (one time Hong Kong's most wanted) bank robber Yip Kai-foon, and kidnapper Cheung Tze-keung for this fictional gathering of the trio, the screenplay by Thomas Ng/Tin Shu Mak and Man Hong Lung take a low-key Neo-Noir forensic approach to to their crime union, hanging low in the safe houses where Yip begins to make a boom on mobile phone sales,powered by the sly, underhanded identity changes of Kwai, all held together by slick Cheuk in a criminal handover.
Revenge (2017) 10
Not saying one line of dialogue after the opening 30 minutes, Matilda Anna Ingrid Lutz gives a utterly mesmerizing performance as Jen. Spending a huge part of the title on her own in the desert with yelps of pain and avenging screams being the lone sounds filling the silence, Lutz brings a subtle quality to the flick, in her body language change from Jen being a free and open Valley Girl, into a battle warrior who destroys all that stand in her way.
Roaring this feature film debut into life with helicopter rotors being washed over in guitar licks, writer/director Coralie Fargeat & cinematographer Robrecht Heyvaert ignite a blazing ultra-stylised deconstruction of the Revenge Horror genre. Greeting Jen, Richard, Stan and Dimitri in a sun-kissed villa, Fargeat takes real precession in taking the gratuitous skin sleaze out of the genre, via holding the camera up-close to Jen's agonising face during the abuse.
Becoming reborn when left for dead in the desert,Fargeat melts the sun-kiss villa of the opening 30 minutes into cranked up hyper-stylisation, whipping up the over saturated burnt colours to Robin Coudert's buzzing score plunging into Jen's burning rush for revenge. Slicing into gripping Body Horror from Jen's symbolic withdrawal of a branch impaled within her, allowing for new blood to flow and a phoenix to rise.Fargeat binds the dusty colours with ultra-stylisation twisting the New Wave of French Horror into blood-drenched long corridor tracking shots, and battle cry overlapping dissolves jabbed with jagged jump-cuts closing in on Jen's eye for revenge.
Noir duo:
The Big Clock (1948) 9
Timed from a novel written by a journalist who worked at Time magazine, director John Farrow brings these origins in with silky smooth pans across the Crimeways magazine floor looped round the brisk exchanges between staff putting the case together. Getting the assignment after original director Leslie Fenton got delayed in making Saigon (1948), Farrow takes full advantage with a cracking Film Noir atmosphere of winding tracking shots eyeing George gathering evidence in empty offices, and stylish low hanging-lit shadows keeping the countdown going for the case to be solved.
With Kenneth Fearing having based Janoth on Time publisher Henry Luce, the screenplay by Jonathan Latimer & Harold Goldman clocks Janoth with Noir relish of barking orders at his underlings, and outbursts of brute force towards anyone who gets near finding out the real headline story. Returning to the mag as the lone hack to have witnessed the murder, the writers print a tense criss-crossing of George carrying his team of hacks to finding the eyewitness, whilst having to maintain being one step ahead so it's not discovered that he himself was the eyewitness.
Stamping on all in his path, Charles Laughton gives a amazing turn as Janoth, thanks to Laughton chomping on Janoth's aggression to keep everyone is place, and also close himself off from difficult questions. Finding no way out from this investigation, Ray Milland gives a great performance as George, whose job as a hack allows Milland to give George a quick-footedness in printing the revelations to the mystery before time runs out on the big clock.
You Can't Escape (1957) 7
Presenting two different aspect ratio versions of the title, Network present a flawless transfer of a crisp image and clean soundtrack.
Initiating a survival of the fittest after Darwin's accidental killing in their adaptation of Alan Kennington's novel, the screenplay by Doreen Montgomery and Robert hall unveil a thrilling Film Noir web, spun by Darwin pulling his fiancé March into help him spin alibis once the locals start to notice that a woman has gone missing. Hanging the chance for Darwin to get away with it all in court, the writers recoil Darwin into a desire to settle a old score, which backfires to a corner he can't escape from.
Keeping everyone away from entering Darwin's personal space, director Wilfred Eades and debut cinematographer Norman Warwick brew a rich Film Noir atmosphere in the brisk, crisp countryside Darwin lives in being balanced with lingering shadows casts across panning shots tracking Darwin's attempt to hide the proof. Oddly resembling David Cameron, Robert Urquhart gives a excellent turn as Darwin, whose upper class life is used by Urquhart to give him a gentlemanly façade, whilst getting his hands dirty as Darwin tries to find a way to escape.
Other flicks:
Tilbury (1987 TV Movie) 8
Clearly not holding anything back for this TV Movie with a tasty eyeful of skin within the opening minutes, co-writer/(with Þorarinn Eldjarn) director Vioar Vikingsson & cinematographer Orn Sveinsson milk gloopy splatter horror of a spewing,wonderfully large clawed creature into a bucket of Folk Horror.
The second of two Horror films Vikingsson would make for TV channel RUV, (the other is Draugasaga (1985)) Vikingsson melts a eerie Horror atmosphere on army barricades, darting the camera on the dance floor where Audun finds women in a seizure state, and swinging the camera high to take Audun back to his dream childhood memories.
Churning the Icelandic folklore Tilbury onto TV, the screenplay by Vikingsson and Eldjarn cross-stitch the rustic Folk Horror details of the creature, with a enticing mystery of Audun slipping pass all those who want to keep the town secret safe, in order to drain the Tilbury.Not listed with the role on this site,Kristjan Franklin Magnus (future star of the superb Nordic Noir TV series Trapped) gives a terrific turn as Audun, thanks to Magnus digging under Audun hard skin from the army, to unveil curiosity of the odd shape he sees moving at night.
No Room To Die (1969)7
Dressed all in black with strands of Klaus Kinski-style wild blonde hair standing on ends,William Berger brings a grittiness to the Wild West as Everett 'Bible' Murdock. Speaking only to wish those about to get killed by his 7- barrel gun (!) God Speed, Berger has Bible go full Old Testament, as Berger has Bible hold each target with a unsettling calmness in the slow, silent manner he walks to give out justice.
The third Spaghetti Western Sergio, (nothing personal man) writer/director Sergio Garrone & cinematographer Franco Villa bring surrealist flourishes to the gunfight in startling dips into black and white splattered close-ups. Rolling down cameras in the opening scene which smash into the border wall, Garrone brings that fluidity to the shoot-out set-pieces, rapidly firing the camera to blistering bullet point whip-pans, landing on a final zoom-in stand-off tribute to The Good, the Bad and the Ugly (1966-also reviewed.)
Loading up on social commentary about the abuse trafficked immigrants suffer, the un- credited screenplay by Garrone disappointingly does not fire off a full round, due to the more serious trafficked plot thread being at odds with the wonderfully animated Bible finding that their is no room to die.
7/10
^^^^