This week: Olivier does Shakespeare; Bresson gets soapy; James Mason really needs to see a doctor; an ape becomes human-ish; a human becomes human-ish; a Belgian kid is (sorta) alright; and Sherlock Holmes fights baddies in slow-mo.
010) Les Dames du Bois de Boulogne (Robert Bresson, 1945)
Sun, Jan 8 / Film Forum, NYC
There’s a Robert Bresson retrospective on at the Film Forum, and somehow this is the only one I got around to seeing this week. Never been the biggest Bresson fan, to be honest, but this one is pretty entertaining by his standards – sometimes even funny! – and the dialogue by Jean Cocteau is poetic in its directness. Maria Casarès is beautiful and terrifying.
011) Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows (Guy Ritchie, 2011)
Tues, Jan 10 / UA Court Street Stadium 12, Brooklyn
The first Guy Ritchie Sherlock Holmes movie was a surprisingly entertaining lite-adventure movie. I didn’t even mind that it strayed rather alarmingly from the spirit of Doyle’s stories; it’s kind of nice to have a charming Sherlock for a change. But the follow-up is just too much – too much flash, too much CGI, too much fanservice (sorry, Allison) – that it gets in the way of the first movie’s breezy fun. Stephen Fry as Mycroft was brilliant casting – I just wish he’d have had more to do. (Ditto Moriarty and Noomi Rapace.)
012) Rise of the Planet of the Apes (Rupert Wyatt, 2011)
Wed, Jan 11 / Redbox DVD
013) The Enigma of Kaspar Hauser (Werner Herzog, 1974)
Wed, Jan 11 / Netflix DVD
A double feature on the blurry line separating man and beast! Coincidentally (?), both feature a scene with an ape on horseback. Not entirely convinced Rise stands on its own if you haven’t seen Planet of the Apes, but it hits all of its marks and is far more satisfying than you’d expect. Still, I couldn’t entirely feel sympathetic for Caesar et al., as I am a human-racist and believe in preserving the future of my species. While Rise is about an ape that develops people-like smarts, Kaspar concerns a (supposedly) feral young man learning to become human. Bruno S. is essentially playing a more extreme version of himself, and his inherent vulnerability is heartbreaking in a way that even the best professional actor could never quite match. (See also: Stroszek.) The film’s original title is brilliant: Jeder für Sich und Gott gegen Alle (Every Man for Himself and God Against All). It’s not just a name; it’s a philosophy!
014) La Promesse (Luc and Jean-Pierre Dardenne, 1996)
Fri, Jan 13 / IFC Center, NYC
My first Dardenne Brothers movie and the first in the IFC Center’s weekend series on the directors. I spent the first third of the film wondering how I was ever going to care about a pair of thieves and cheats – then suddenly I did, for one of them anyway. This week’s lesson: don’t give up on the kids, even those who don’t stand a chance.
015) Henry V (Laurence Olivier, 1944)
Fri, Jan 13 / Netflix Watch Instantly
You have probably figured out that I kinda like lists. Henry V is a double scorer, as it features in both the Criterion Collection and 1001 Movies You Must See Before You Die (incidentally, one of the better entries in the 1001 series.) I’d given the film a try a few years ago, but bailed after a few minutes. I’m not much a fan of epics, war movies or Shakespeare on film, but this time I held out until the bitter end. I’ll give Olivier credit for staging the play in a novel fashion: opening it as a Globe Theatre performance both eases the audience into the heightened language and provides a handy laugh track so they know when it’s supposed to be funny. But enough major scenes are taken out (in the interest of keeping King Hal sympathetic, to boost English morale during WWII) that it feels a bit lopsided.
016) Odd Man Out (Carol Reed, 1947)
Sat, Jan 14 / Netflix Watch Instantly
Man, can Carol Reed shoot men running through dark, shadowy alleys or what? He also has a good eye for postwar ambience and making movies that are about politics without being Political Films. Odd Man Out stars James Mason as the leader of a Northern Irish rebel group, but it’s less interested in taking sides than in showing how the group’s presence affects the people of the city, regardless of whether they condone it. The film could stand to lose a half hour or so – the stuff with Shell goes on for ages, and how long can you reasonably expect a grievously injured Mason to bounce from place to place without medical treatment? – but the ending is a great nihilist gut-punch.
