Flipside Movie Emporium

[beltmann]

[Jim Harper]

[beltmann]

[the night watchman]

I like Day of the Triffids a lot too. Like Eric, I also owe at least some of my affection for the science fiction genre to my dad. I got him The Day the Earth Stood Still for Christmas, his favorite movie -- he was over-joyed. My love of horror is my own, however, since he does tend to be somewhat of a chicken when it comes to that genre; along with Day I also got him The Thing from Another World, and when I asked if he'd watched it a week ago he said, "No, not yet. [quieter] You know, that movie kinda scares me."

[Jim Harper]

[the night watchman]

[Michael Scrutchin]

Jan. 1 to Jan. 7, 2005:

[Jim Harper]

[Michael Scrutchin]

[beltmann]

1/3 ? 1/9/05

Two Brothers (Annaud, France 2004)

The Phantom of the Opera (Julian, USA 1925)

Code 46 (Winterbottom, UK 2003)

The Greatest Story Ever Told (Stevens, USA 1965)

I enjoyed Code 46 immensely, especially for the way it uses its futuristic society?so clever in its we?re-on-the-way inevitability?to comment directly on contemporary issues related to globalization and identity.

Although The Greatest Story Ever Told does pay some attention to the political circumstances that expedited the troublesome Nazarene's martyrdom, it is far too reverent for its own good: There?s no sense of how Jesus captured the imagination of the masses, and so his threat to established authority remains an abstraction. Still, that reverent approach does yield a ceaseless parade of voluptuous, perfectly composed images. Watching this movie is like watching a series of paintings.

Lon Chaney?s Phantom of the Opera rocks. It?s a mesmerizing, touching movie about extremes, about a scarred man who can?t reconcile his boundless love with his raging bitterness. I especially liked the use of shadows and cavernous spaces.

Space also plays a pivotal role in Twentynine Palms, which I saw last week and after another seven days of thought still believe is Dumont?s Showgirls?the Death Valley landscapes may have a vast, echoing appeal, but the rocks have more in common with actual humanity than Dumont?s characters. I could live with these characters as mere constructs?certainly I was never bored?except in the end they are at the service of a rigid philosophical argument about animal instinct, which I won?t spoil, that I simply do not agree with. Worse, after all of his somber, humorless everyday banality?no road trip was ever so anti-human?and after all of his gratuitous, exploitative violence, I don?t think he adds an ounce of insight into the concepts of Naturalism; what do we learn about Naturalism from Twentynine Palms that we didn?t already know from Crane, Steinbeck, Wharton, Maupassant, Hardy, etc., except for Dumont?s own bestial capacity for mistreating his audience?

Eric
_________________
"When I was in Barcelona they showed pornography on regular television. I'm assuming it's the same way in Mexico since they also speak Spanish." - IMDb user comment

[the night watchman]

[beltmann]

The Naturalist writers applied the scientific principles of objectivity to the study of human beings, and "discovered" that humans are "beasts" that can be studied through their relationship to their surroundings. When I watched Twentynine Palms, it seemed to me Dumont was doing the exact same thing, especially since he shows the same interest in commonplace and unheroic events. Like the Naturalists, he shows how acts of violence and passion are part of our regular, daily existence.

Also like the Naturalists, Dumont promotes a specific philosophical point-of-view regarding the loss of individuality: Fate will be harsh; our lives are controlled by the environment; free will is an illusion; nature is an indifferent force; chance rules our lives; human beings are powerless within a huge, apathetic universe.

To a large extent I agree with this philosophy--in fact, in college I spent a great deal of extra time with Naturalism, especially Hardy, because I found it fascinating--but where Dumont differs from the great writers of the movement is in his rigid belief that humans are nothing but animal instinct. (That's a valid artistic point, I suppose, but it's one that I profoundly disagree with.) I think the great writers recognized that humanity contains multitudes, and their work always seems to exist within a recognizable human landscape. In my previous post I wasn't thinking about any specific works that Twentynine Palms directly correlates to, but here's one example: In my opinion, Crane's Red Badge of Courage has infinitely more psychological complexity in its illustration of Naturalist concepts, and has infinitely more relevant human beings at its center.

I will say that Dumont's visual decisions are worthy of recognition; his reliance on long shots is appropriate on two counts: One, it allows us to observe these characters in context of their surroundings, and two, it allows viewers to decide what in the frame is worth looking at--the value judgments are left up to us.

Eric
_________________
"When I was in Barcelona they showed pornography on regular television. I'm assuming it's the same way in Mexico since they also speak Spanish." - IMDb user comment

[the night watchman]

BIG SPOILERS for Twentynine Palms

Thanks for clarifying, Eric. I pretty much agree with your assessment, especially about how the movie is shot, although I'm not as familiar with the schools of literature as you are, and although "Naturalism" didn't go through my head once while I was watching Twentynine Palms. Your mention of Maupassant made something click in my head, however, especially when I recalled his short story "Two Friends."

I do disagree with your claim that "Dumont differs from the great writers of the movement is in his rigid belief that humans are nothing but animal instinct. I think the great writers recognized that humanity contains multitudes, and their work always seems to exist within a recognizable human landscape," which is your main contention with the movie. You certainly have grounds for this conclusion, since every contact David and Katia have with other humans is at least aloof or passively aggressive, if not outright hostile, and since the two central characters are anything but complex. But what I saw in the movie was more of an exploration of a kind of male/female relationship that the road trip, the natural surroundings, the solitude and the isolation renders down to the most basic element, which Dumont seems to regard as a play of dominance and pliancy. The sex in which the couple engages is nearly always an awkward and un-erotic display of aggression and submission (except when Katia takes control in the hotel room, which produces in David an orgasm so intense he cries afterward, a moment that is mirrored near the film?s end by David?s aggressor). Their constant bickering becomes arbitrary and meaningless only up to the point that it enables David to draw Katia back from her resistance, so that disputes become a ritual, a means to an end.

I get the impression that the first outside act of violence at the movie's final twenty minutes is more than random or meaningless within the larger context of the movie -- although it may remain arbitrary for David and Katia -- because the men who instigate David?s rape go out of their way to make sure Katia watches it. Indeed, since Katia?s witnessing of David?s rape seems to be as purposeful as the assault itself, and since the act is so coordinated and ritualized, I understood it as an attempt to illustrate in an objective manner to Katia her part in the couple?s relationship (this is when the movie becomes less than realistic and moves toward the surreal), and, as brutal as it is, it serves as a potential trigger for positive transformation, i.e., bringing about equality in the relationship. It doesn?t work out that way, of course (how could it?); David attempts to win back his status as the dominant party by trying to transform himself into his aggressor (by shaving his head), and destroying Katia, who, by witnesses the stripping away of his stature and masculinity, has been made his ?equal,? which he resents. Utterly abject, he dies in the desert by his own attempts (though this is vague) to complete his transformation.

The point is that David wholly identifies himself with the dominant male role, and stripping him of that role leaves him with nothing. Since he and Katia?s relationship had been reduced to sex and the parts the two play in the sex act, only his rape at the hand of another male, i.e., being forced to ?trade roles,? is the only thing, at that point, that would make any kind of impact on him.

If it sounds like I am being casually objective about the act of rape, I don?t mean to. I think the movie effectively drives its point home about the shocking and debasing nature of this type of male sexuality on an emotional level as well as an intellectual level, even if the two can?t be adequately explained in the same breath.

I might be overlaying meaning and structure the movie itself does not offer, but when you consider that David and Katia?s aggressive/submissive sexual acts are often out in the open (where they are never as alone as they think they are), that their fisticuffs takes place in the middle of a road, that the only time David and Katia relate of even ground (in the hotel with Katia ?on top,? and as they lay naked on the rocks) really is in private, and the highly structured way the men orchestrate David?s rape, I think that the movie does offer more psychological insight -- if a grim one to a specific personality -- than it seems to on the surface.
_________________
"If you're talking about censorship, and what things should be shown and what things shouldn't be shown, I've said that as an artist you have no social responsibility whatsoever."

-David Cronenberg

[Jim Harper]

Good God, my eyes...

[the night watchman]

Sorry, Jim, you can read the text more easily if you highlight it.
_________________
"If you're talking about censorship, and what things should be shown and what things shouldn't be shown, I've said that as an artist you have no social responsibility whatsoever."

-David Cronenberg