This Week... #1 (Saturday 24th November to Tuesday 27th November)

This originally was planned as another month of reviews like the Halloween 31 For 31, but instead I am deciding to combined a diary together with one of those challenges to watch 365 films each day of the year to create a weekly piece for the blog. The only rules for this feature are that –

1. The reviews will be small and not official write-ups like the other blog posts I do. If any are good films or any worth writing about, they may (hopefully) get full length posts on them later down the line.
2. Since I can usually watch two films per day, I will choose the one I would rather write about.
3. If I cannot get a film (or any other work) watched for a day, it doesn’t matter.
4. I will use this to clear through my To-Watch list, my pile of DVDs in my possession and any other lists I have. It’ll take years to clear through them, but that’s less of a concern to actually enjoying this ongoing goal.
5. These are fluff writing, little more. As long as you the reader find something in them, it doesn’t matter if they’re not fine art.

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Saturday 24^th November : La Grande Illusion (Jean Renoir, 1937)

During the First World War, two French soldiers are captured and imprisoned in a German POW camp. Several escape attempts follow until they are sent to a seemingly impenetrable fortress which seems impossible to escape from. (IMDB)

Pretty great drama from Renoir, another major director I’ve finally started digging into this year. The third act seemed disjointed from the rest of the film, but La Grande Illusion is a very interesting mix of humour, sadness and a reflection on how Europe changed after World War I. Seeing the bizarre experimental shorts on the disc he directed in the 1920s, it is amazing Renoir would transformed into one of the most esteemed realist directors from France.

From http://www.doctormacro.com/Images/Dietrich,%20Marlene/Annex/Annex%20-%20Dietrich,%20Marlene%20(Blue%20Angel,%20The)_02.jpg

Sunday 5^th November: The Blue Angel (Josef Von Sternberg, 1930)

Immanuel Rath, an old bachelor, is a professor at the town's university. When he discovers that some of his pupils often go into a speakeasy, The Blue Angel, to visit a dancer, Lola Lola, he comes there to confront them. But he is attracted to Lola. The next night he comes again--and does not sleep at home. This causes trouble at work and his life takes a downward spiral. (IMDB)

A slow burn for me to get into, but when the main crux of the story starts to play out it starts to get very good, a very down-to-earth yet elaborately blunt story to match the titular nightclub. It is amazing to see such a young Marlene Dietrich with a much softer face and (German speaking) voice compared to her trademark drawl and commanding appearance, but her prescience makes her character far more than a mere temptress for the better of the film.

From From http://s3.amazonaws.com/auteurs_production/images/film/pain-is/w448/pain-is.jpg?1333280915

Monday 6^th November: Pain Is... (Stephen Dwoskin, 1997) & Intoxicated By My Illness (Stephen Dwoskin, 2001)

Pain Is.. (1997): The film is just this kind wandering through the personal ways and whys of different kinds of pain in different kinds of people. Far from the academic and the medical, the film questions this phenomenon of pain. The film searches through the many levels of pain and finds it in its unique position between disaster and pleasure. Pain Is… thus plunges us instantly into the midst of controversy and the unknown. (MUBI.com)

Intoxicated By My Illness (2001): Intoxicated by My Illness (in which images photographed by several people are extensively superimposed) loosely and dreamily tracks a phase in Dwoskin's recent life that took him from medical examination to intensive care. (Luxonline.org.uk)

With shades similar to Sick: The Life & Death of Bob Flanagan, Supermasochist (1997), director Dwoskin, disabled by polio at a young age, tackles the concept of pain in a free flowing documentary work, an essay which puts together various types of pain within a 80 minute montage. He gives no concessions to the viewer in terms of softening the content, including scenes of body modification and sado-mascochism – including himself (?), behind a camera, being treated by a dominatrix – but through interviews, poetic scenes and pre-existing footage, puts together a complex view on a complex subject. It’s incomplete but does its best to analysis the concept.

On the same DVD and following similar themes, Intoxicated By My Illness is worth adding as an additional piece. Split into two parts, this 40 minute piece is a tableau of images, following an older man in critical care in hospital, which blurs together sex and death and literally superimposes them on top of each other. There are no restrictions to the content even compared to Pain Is... – from surgery footage to a close-up of a penis being masturbated by another person – and the link is made explicit, nurses made into dominatrixes and dominatrixes into loving carers. Made on digital video, it is experimental filmmaking that can only appeal to a small audience but its willingness to push itself as it does could be learnt from in mainstream cinema.

From http://s3.amazonaws.com/auteurs_production/images/film/andy-warhols-bad/w448/andy-warhols-bad.jpg?1289463553

Tuesday 27^th November: Andy Warhol's Bad (Jed Johnson, 1977)

Hazel runs a beauty salon out of her house, but makes extra money by providing ruthless women to do hit jobs. K.T. is a parasite, and contacts Hazel looking for work when he runs out of money. She is reluctant to use him for a hit, since she prefers using women, but decides to try him on a trial basis. Meanwhile, the local cop she pays off wants an arrest to make it look like he's actually doing his job, but she doesn't want to sacrifice any of her "associates." Several other side plots are woven in, populated with characters from the sleazy side of life. (IMDB)

A peculiar mix of Paul Morrissey’s films under the Andy Warhol name like Trash (1970) and really cult, poor taste cinema. It’s mixing of long scenes of conversation with clearly unrealistic and purposely distasteful content (especially a scene involving a baby) is very unique and something I’ve yet to see in another film. if there is a potential problem it’s that keeping to a more digestible narrative compared to Morrissey’s non-horror films, despite its content, hurts its ability to be really interesting in its fluid tangents, but if you can locate it its one of the kind in the right meaning of that term.