Brief movie reviews

1. Barry Lyndon Stanley Kubrick, 1975. Starring Ryan O'Neal, Marisa Berenson, Michael Hordern, Leon Vitali

Based loosely on Thackeray's rambling, subversive novel, Stanley Kubrick's film masterpiece was a critical and popular failure on its release, but has grown in critical estimation since, and is now widely considered to be one of Kubrick's most profound and flawlessly executed works. The film is a visual feast, shot entirely in natural light (special lenses developed by NASA were used to shoot the indoor scenes, illuminated only by candles) and featuring period costumes, the film is nevertheless self-consciously modern in its outlook and sentiment, as Thackeray's novel was in its own way very anachronistic. Redmond Barry, played by O'Neal, is a man trapped by historical and personal necessity, forced to play out his life according to strict laws of logic and character. He rises above this predestined role at only one key moment in the film, with disastrous personal repercussions. The narrator and the camera direction further contrive to pin Barry down within a cultural and temporal framework that underlines the triteness of his aspirations and his ordeals, with sarcastic asides, and slow, protracted zoom-outs that freeze and frame the events almost as they occur. The film is also an indictment of the Clausewiczian notion of military conflict as an extension of politics. Endlessly inventive and original in its structure, the real tragedy of the film is not in the inevitable parabolic course of Redmond Barry's life, but in the way in which "the particular human content of one era becomes tragically lost in time and absorbed into the aesthetic distances of its art." (Quote from Thomas Nelson - Kubrick: Inside a Film Artist's Maze)

2. The General Buster Keaton, 1926. Starring Buster Keaton, Marion Mack, Glen Cavender, Jim Farley

The General was Keaton's most personal film, combining his love of history and cinematography, and embodying his personality and spirit more than any other film he made. Beautifully photographed and surely directed, The General tells the story of Johnny Gray with an economy and a simplicity that is unsurpassed by any film from the silent era. Though it showcases Keaton's considerable acting and athletic talents brilliantly, it also tells a compelling story. Every scene in the film serves a dual function - to entertain, and to further the plot - the egotism of Chaplin's films is entirely absent here. So too is the cheap sentimentality associated with so many silent films - a perfect example is the scene where Annabelle Lee (played by Marion Mack) "helps" Johnny gather fuel for the engine; when Johnny starts to strangle her but ends up giving her a kiss, the mixture of love and frustration he feels is conveyed so simply and so straightforwardly that the audience cannot help but connect with the film in a direct and fundamental way. The historical setting paradoxically serves to keep the film fresh and timeless, so that even today, seventy years after its creation, The General is intuitive and appealing to a modern audience, and transcends its technical "shortcomings" (i.e. lack of colour or sound) to stand as a lasting testament to Keaton's genius.

3. Hannah and her Sisters Woody Allen, 1987. Starring Michael Caine, Barbara Hershey, Mia Farrow, Diane Wiest, Woody Allen

If Chekhov had grown up in Brooklyn in the 40's, he might have ended up writing films instead of plays, and they might well have had something in common with the work of Woody Allen. Both artists combine a gift for comedy and storytelling with an interest in the philosophical problems faced by the fin de siecle "aristocratic" temperament (a.k.a. the New York liberal intellectual temperament) which, divorced from the immediacy of hunger or disease, must come to terms with much more intangible problems of man's purpose and his mortality, or invent imaginary problems to distract themselves from these. In this beautiful film, Michael Caine chooses the latter alternative and Woody Allen the former. They do not come to any intellectually satisfying resolution of these problems, but rather find a workable practical solution in the love of Hannah and her sisters, in various permutations at various times. Simultaneously, the three sisters (another Chekhovian reference) wrestle with problems of creativity, jealousy and loyalty. These problems are convincingly portrayed as extensions of the sibling rivalry from their childhood, and serve to emphasise that philosophical problems are coloured by historical perspective. Lighter and more persuasive than Crimes and Misdemeanours, my personal preference for this film may reflect my preference for Chekhov over Dostoevsky, but I think it cannot be denied that the former was the greater dramatist, and the more insightful into human nature - and it is the drama and the insight of Hannah and her Sisters which make it such an enjoyable, and such a spiritually fulfilling film.

4. La Voce Della Luna Federico Fellini, 1989. Starring Roberto Benigni, Andrea Azzariti, Paolo Villagio

The Voice of the Moon is the literal English translation of the title, and this film is a meditation on Fellini's favourite themes of lunacy and the feminine. As Fellini's last film, this is one of the most philosophical of a philosophical bunch. However, Fellini's philosophy is never abstract or cerebral, but rooted in the physical world, and in human desires and emotions. Benigni's performance as the simple Ivo Salvini is so sympathetic and beautiful that we cannot help but fall in love with his simplicity. Like the workmen with the cherry-picker, which they think will let them harvest the moon, the characters in this film feel that wisdom and illumination are only just out of reach. Sometimes lunacy tends towards paranoia, for instance in the old man played by Paolo Villagio, and sometimes it tends towards creativity, as in the oboe player who imagines ghosts travelling through his musical notes. Dismissed as "unstructured" and "incoherent" by many critics, there are in fact deep unifying themes running through this film; during scenes set at night, the film moves from idea to idea with a dreamlike fluidity. During daytime scenes, the film moves accoring to necessity of action and plot. This was Fellini's last film, more because its lack of popular success scared off potential investors than by design. But its poetry and its substance make it one of his best.

5. Some Like it Hot Billy Wilder, 1959. Starring Jack Lemmon, Tony Curtis, Marilyn Monroe

Slicker and funnier than the innumerable imitations that followed it, this is the story of two musicians who can't get a gig, on the run from the mob after inadvertently witnessing a gangland slaying, who solve their problems simultaneously by dressing up and joining an all-girl band. The sexual politics is handled with sympathy and flair, and the denoument is one of the funniest in film history. This is by far Marilyn's best film, and her screen presence is tremendously captivating. All the essential elements - crossdressing, the mob, a millionaire's yacht, musical numbers, high-speed chases - are present, but there is an undercurrent of satire running through the whole film which invites its audience to laugh with the film at all the hollywood cliches. One of Wilder's finest.

6. Barton Fink Joel and Ethan Coen, 1989. Starring John Turturro, Judy Davis, John Goodman

This postmodern piece from the Coen brothers, set in a 30's Hollywood that might as well be Hell on earth has John Turturro playing the second-rate New York playwright-turned-screenwriter Barton Fink. Unable to get past the first line of his first screenplay - a wrestling B-movie - Barton retreats into a claustrophobic world into which peculiar characters - his mysterious, weeping neighbor (John Goodman), the wife of his favourite author (Judy Davis) - appear. There is a murder which the film leaves largely unresolved, since it is from the psychological perspective of Barton, to whom much, if not all, is a total mystery. Going into occasional spiels about how he wants to write about "real people", Barton is at a loss when the real world interrupts his "life of the mind". When he finally completes his screenplay after a night-long frenzy of typing, he ends up recycling lines and sentiments from his play. If you'd rather see a wrestling picture than a picture about a man wrestling with his soul, this film is not for you. Barton Fink is about the dark undercurrents that lie beneath the filmscreen-thin surface of life, and it offers a tantalizing glimpse of this ugly underneath.

7. Prospero's Books Peter Greenaway, 1991. Starring Sir John Gielgud

Most of Greenaway's movies suffer from the acute shortcoming of flimsy (or non-existent) plot, boring or unengaged characters, and stilted dialogue. This reflects the director's lack of interest in these traditional narrative elements; instead, his greatest ability and focus is on the painterly element of cinema. The camera frames and captures a scene; it tracks horizontally to suggest the linear development of narrative, it zooms in or out to suggest movement through the multiple layers of meaning or hierarchy of reference and self-reference amongst the characters. This adaptation of The Tempest is perfect for his style, since the plot, character and dialogue are ready-made, and since the theme of Shakespeare's play - the relationship between the artist and his muse, allegorically mirrored in the relationship between Prospero and Ariel, resonates so strongly with Greenaway's philosophical concerns. The backgrounds are a richly integrated mess of Greek, Roman and Egyptian mythology and architecture. The spirits which inhabit Prospero's world and imagination are all naked, and allow Greenaway to show off his painterly appreciation of the subtle textures of human flesh. The best moments in the film are Prospero's moments of self-knowledge, where he acknowledges his (and our) kinship with "our actors . . all spirits and are melted into air . . and like the baseless fabric of this vision . . shall dissolve and, like this insubstantial pageant faded, leave not a rack behind. We are such stuff as dreams are made on, and our little life is rounded with a sleep."

8. Lost Highway David Lynch 1997. Starring Bill Pullman, Patricia Arquette, Balthazar Getty, Robert Blake

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