It Takes a Village

The misguided colonialism in Of Gods and Men

by Tony Dayoub

Last week’s most notable DVD release was Of Gods and Men (Des hommes et des dieux), winner of the number two prize at last year’s Cannes Film Festival, the Grand Prix. (Out this week is the comparatively better-known Uncle Boonmee Who Can Recall His Past Lives, winner of last year’s Palme d’Or.) Curiously, though a sensation in its native secular France, this faith-based drama has received relatively little press in the more religious US. No doubt this is rooted in the fact that Of Gods and Men takes a complicated view of Christian-Muslim relations, a less black-and-white perspective that Americans, still smarting from September 11, may not be ready to accept just yet...

CONTINUE READING AT NOMAD EDITIONS: WIDE SCREEN

Waiting for Hulot

by Tony Dayoub

In this week's Wide Screen, I look at the recent Blu-ray release of last year's Oscar-nominated animated feature, The Illusionist. Here's an excerpt from my column, "Tatischeff or Tati?" in which I use the scene most resembling one of Jacques Tati's Monsieur Hulot gags as a starting point in contrasting the iconic Hulot from the new film's titular magician, Tatischeff:

But outside of this one sequence in The Illusionist, Tatischeff (as his name underscores) is not meant to invoke the character of Hulot, as much as he is meant to recall the artist who assumed the name, Jacques Tati. (For Playtime, Tati built a virtual city with its own power plant at great expense to him both financially and in terms of his cinematic career.) Like the director, Tatischeff is a man who patiently sets up acts involving sleight of hand, appreciated by a rare few (as represented by Alice), but is fighting a losing battle in a world growing ever faster in its pace, its technological development and its disdain for artists who aren’t simply pretty tabulas rasa; a running joke in the film involves Tatischeff repeatedly encountering a boy band that acts masculine in front of their screaming female fans while relaxing into effeminacy backstage.

CONTINUE READING AT NOMAD EDITIONS: WIDE SCREEN

Movie Review: Potiche (2010)

by Tony Dayoub

It's 1970s France and Suzanne Pujol (Catherine Deneuve) is content. Her husband Robert (Fabrice Luchini) is the director of her late father's umbrella factory. He's having some trouble with striking workers, but that's okay because Robert avoids sharing his troubles with her. Instead, he dumps his problems on his secretary (and mistress), Nadège (Karin Viard). Daughter Joëlle (Judith Godrèche) belittles Suzanne for being a simple potiche—a trophy wife—confessing she is about to ask for a divorce from her own freeloading husband. And son Laurent (Jérémie Rénier) is a student still undecided about his plans for the future. No one is happy, least of all Suzanne, but she's content. Nobody's perfect, right? This is the way life should be. And at least she's happy enough that when she goes for a jog in the morning, the forest animals are attracted to her cheerfulness, surrounding her and serenading her with their soft chirps and purrs like they would Sleeping Beauty. Wait... say what?

Carlos (2010): NYFF10's Masterpiece Premieres Tomorrow on Sundance Channel Before Theatrical Release

by Tony Dayoub

Olivier Assayas (Summer Hours) alternates between quieter dialogue-driven films and action-oriented pictures which explore themes related to the effect globalization has on individuals. So, given his previous film's quiet look at a family dealing with the death of their matriarch, it is no surprise he should return with this period biopic centered on the infamous terrorist, Carlos the Jackal. Anyone who grew up in the seventies can remember the rash of plane hijackings and hostage taking that plagued the era. Too many, Carlos seemed to be an omnipresent mastermind behind nearly all of them. What is surprising is how consistently exciting Carlos remains throughout its 5-and-a-half-hour running time. Even a film like Che (2008), which I rank among one of my recent favorites (and has sprung up in conversations comparing it to Carlos despite bearing little resemblance to it beyond sharing famous revolutionary protagonists), has its slower paced lulls. But I saw Carlos last week in one marathon sitting (interrupted only once by a 30-minute intermission), and it moves with a real urgency throughout its three parts.

NYFF10 Movie Review: Black Venus (Vénus noire) (2010)

by Tony Dayoub

The "Hottentot Venus" was a freak show exhibition in the early 19th century, in which a black South African female, Saartjie Baartman (Yahima Torres), was displayed to European audiences curious about her anatomical differences, primarily her large hips and buttocks, a genetic trait common among her people. Not exhibited to the same spectators was another rumored physical feature, the elongated labia minora which hung down 3 to 4 inches from her vagina. As Black Venus (Vénus noire) begins, we see a plaster-cast figure of Baartman being examined at a scientific lecture, with particular attention being paid by the biologists to this feature, which they dubbed the "Hottentot skirt." This denigrating and sexist nickname is but one of the many indignities Baartman would suffer throughout her life, indignities which would continue even in death.

NYFF10 Movie Review: Film Socialisme (2010)

by Tony Dayoub

Full disclosure: I'm the last one you want to ask about either Jean-Luc Godard (of his films, I've seen a sum total of 2 full-length features and one short, all pre-1990) or avant-garde film. I know much about the pionering French director from books and my studies in college almost 20 years back. But his films, indeed all films, are to be experienced. As for the avant-garde, it is a type of cinema I have always had trouble appreciating. I'm not judging it, mind you. If anything, it is my limited ability to comprehend them that I blame. So if this review is somewhat vague, or I sound out of my depth, please forgive me. What I can say is that the somewhat mystifying Film Socialisme is oddly enthralling even to an ignorant fellow like myself.

Blu-ray Review: Breathless (À bout de souffle) (1960)

by Tony Dayoub

Watching Breathless (À bout de souffle) today, with the benefit of fifty years of critical hindsight, I am struck by the way it so obviously indicates the trajectory its director's career would take over time. Jean-Luc Godard, who defended/lauded underrated American B-movies as a critic for Cahiers du Cinéma, presents Breathless as both a tribute to and rejection of said films all at once, opening with a title card dedicating the film to Monogram Pictures while doing his best to overcome the budgetary and structural obstacles such films were often subject to. It's through his protagonists' interplay, though, that we see the earliest spark of Godard's revolt against the status quo.

Movie Review: Mesrine: Public Enemy #1 (L'ennemi public n°1) (2008)

by Tony Dayoub

A couple of weeks ago I caught an interview with Vincent Cassel on Charlie Rose in which, while promoting his Mesrine two-parter, he explained his approach to famed bank robber Jacques Mesrine. Chief among his demands on the film's producers was his desire to play the man as the criminal he was, not the mythical Robin Hood he portrayed hiself as in his memoir. So my expectation going into the second part, Mesrine: Public Enemy #1 (L'ennemi public n°1), was that this film would be the grittier and more overtly critical of the two films, a takedown of the roguish image depicted in Mesrine: Killer Instinct (reviewed here). Imagine my disappointment when, midway through the film, Jacques gives a 100,000 francs to a poor family who just smuggled him through a police roadblock, thanking them for their service.

Movie Review: Mesrine: Killer Instinct (L'instinct de mort) (2008)

by Tony Dayoub

Opening today in limited release throughout the U.S., Mesrine: Killer Instinct is a star vehicle showcasing the talents of its leading man, Vincent Cassel. Although quite well-known internationally, particularly for his lead roles in Irreversible and La Haine (oh yeah... and he's married to one of the most beautiful women in the world), domestically he's had to settle for character parts in films like Eastern Promises, and the Ocean's franchise. Being that Mesrine feels more like an American gangster flick than some of the notable Gallic ones, this might be the best chance for the talented Cassel to finally cross over big.

Blu-ray Review: Black Orpheus (Orfeu negro) (1959)

by Tony Dayoub

Sometimes our intellectual sophistication can get in the way of enjoying an entertaining film on the uncomplicated level of "pure cinema." This conflict is more pronounced when a movie with a tinge of social realism could be tagged as profoundly naive, as is the case of Criterion's Blu-ray release this week, Black Orpheus (Orfeu negro). However, reframe the film as a musical, one driven by the burgeoning sounds of the Bossa nova and samba, and one's perspective on Black Orpheus might shift rather mightily.

Two from Criterion: Louie Bluie (1985) and The Secret of the Grain (La graine et le mulet) (2007)

by Tony Dayoub

Bowing on DVD Tuesday are two documentaries by director Terry Zwigoff (Ghost World). One of them is Crumb (1994), the widely seen movie about well known underground artist Robert Crumb and his gonzo family. The other (sporting a cover by Crumb) is Zwigoff's first film, Louie Bluie, a one-hour look at unsung blues musician Howard "Louie Bluie" Armstrong, a real pleasure to watch. I can count on one hand the number of times I've watched a film all the way through then immediately watched it again, and viewing this doc is one of those times.

On Demand: Centurion (2010) and Don't Look Back (Ne te retourne pas) (2009)

by Tony Dayoub

More and more, films which don't necessarily get a fair shake at the box office are being released through the On Demand platform. Movies with well known names attached both in front and behind the camera can now be watched comfortably from home. Last year's Two Lovers, directed by James Gray and starring Gwyneth Paltrow and Joaquin Phoenix, even made it onto my top ten list. The two films reviewed in this post don't come anywhere near being top ten material. However, each is of varying levels of interest and, though it doesn't exactly sound like a ringing endorsement, both are at least as good as most of this year's theatrical offerings.

Blu-ray Review: Criterion's Vivre Sa Vie (1962) and Summer Hours (2008)

by Tony Dayoub

Were you one of the mob who rushed to buy the movie-only Avatar (2009) disc oh so cannily released on Earth Day? Why would you when it's already been announced that Cameron plans a more extensive edition containing extra footage within a year, and a 3D Blu-ray by 2012? Especially the last one since the science fiction film is so inextricably dependent on 3D immersion to tell its story effectively. In this age of double—and now triple—dips by Hollywood studios in order to maximize the profits they see vanishing as the whole business model of film distribution and release changes, it is gratifying to see one label, Criterion, hone in on films which advance the art of telling a story over productions which simply accelerate the visual technology used to illustrate the bare minimum of a plot. And Criterion usually gets it right the first time, double dipping only in rare cases where a better quality print has been restored for a film in often dire need of such a thing. Two of the most recent examples of Criterion's concern with its product presentation, Vivre sa vie (My Life to Live) and Summer Hours (L'Heure d'été), have only one tenuous tie (they're both in French) but are fully deserving of one's attention over the most recent Hollywood blockbuster.

Lola Montès (1955): Is It Really "the Greatest Film of All Time?"

by Tony Dayoub

Before I discuss Lola Montès, allow me to digress. An oft-discussed topic among cinephiliacs (where did I see it this week, Wonders in the Dark?) is the difference—if there is one—between a film labeled "best" or "favorite." As in, "Citizen Kane is the best film of all time," or, "My all-time favorite film is There Will Be Blood." I am of the opinion that "best" and "favorite" are two different animals. A movie which I label "best" is a film displaying artistic, intellectual, and technical virtuosity, yet it might not engage me on an emotional level. The White Ribbon (2009) is a great example of a film which I am happy to list as one of the best of this decade, but it leaves me cold... as it is meant to. It certainly isn't a "favorite" which I would choose to see over and over again. No, a "favorite" is a movie which I enjoy watching, sometimes even obsessively, despite any flaws in its execution. For example, David Lynch's visually stylish Lost Highway (1997) is a film which is certainly not one of his best, tends to be almost parodic in its excesses, yet appeals to me for the way it hearken's back to another noir I love, Kiss Me Deadly. Get it?

Well, as it so happens, the two films which are constantly vying for the number one spot on my own personal list of such things happen to be films I consider both "best" and "favorite," Bertolucci's Il Conformista (The Conformist) (1970) and Coppola's The Godfather Part II (1974). They each have a complex nonlinear narrative structure, make thematic associations through montage—a visual device unique to the moving picture—are impeccably cast, perfectly written with dialogue that is not only colloquial to the characters but resonant within the subtextual framework... the list of their outstanding qualities goes on. They are also movies which I engage with so greatly that even after multiple viewings, I like spending time in their respective worlds. Food for the mind AND for the soul, these movies are.

Watching the upcoming Criterion release of Max Ophuls final film, Lola Montès, at first glance a film which doesn't resemble either of my two favorites, is what got me to thinking about how I classify movies. A subscriber to auteurism like myself couldn't ignore its godfather, film critic Andrew Sarris and his one-time declaration, "Lola Montès is, in my unhumble opinion, the greatest film of all time.” Wow. He really sidestepped the whole "best" vs. "favorite" argument by using the all-encompassing "greatest." Why hadn't I seen this movie yet? The reasons are many as to how this gorgeous film got lost over the years, and easy to find if you search the internet. But as for me personally, fate got in the way of my being able to see it in 2008, the first year I was invited to cover the New York Film Festival where this restored version had its premiere.

Lola Montès explores the historical figure—an Englishwoman (Martine Carol) who adopted the titular stage name gaining some fame for her dancing and even greater fame for her numerous affairs with such luminaries as composer Franz Liszt (Will Quadflieg) and King Ludwig I of Bavaria (Anton Walbrook, looking like an old world Victor Garber)—through an unusual framing device. Peter Ustinov assays the role of the Ringmaster at a travelling circus in which Lola performs in a living reenactment of her life story. Each time an anecdote is related to the rapt audience, the viewer is drawn into a flashback by the film's own meta-ringmaster, Ophuls.

On a purely visual level the film, Ophuls' first in color and Cinemascope, is spectacular to behold. Every frame is lushly appointed with color, and a gilded luxury densely and kaleidoscopically layered onto the image. Not one shot is free of any refractive, prismatic, or reflective effect. Actors are frequently blocked by columns, architectural grating, stained glass, or gauzy color curtains throughout, all effects which separate us from the events of Lola's life unfolding before us while paradoxically creating the intimacy of being in the same room as her, voyeuristically peering into her most private moments like some celebrity stalker. Adding to this peculiar contradiction is Ophuls' refusal to ever shoot any closeups within the flashbacks, a decision which realistically approximates our own natural vision's propensity to focus on medium to wide tableaux, again keeping us at an unusual distance cinematically while still preserving the you-are-there perception.

The viewer's perspective shifts almost imperceptibly throughout the circus setting, the film's present as it were, from one of spectator when Ophuls' constantly moving camera tracks Lola from her audience's point of view to one of omniscient voyeur when the camera follows her backstage, where every cinematographic obstruction hints at the loneliness and confinement the character endures in her self-imposed isolation. Say what you will about Martine Carol's limited range, it is perfectly harnessed by Ophuls to convey the character of a chameleon, one who has voided her personality to become all things to all men, a sexual object defined by whatever male is at her side, but strangely devoid of emotion in all but two key moments in the film. Carol's vacant expression and Ophuls' visual imprisonment of Lola fuse in the film's last tracking shot to form one of the most disturbing final shots I can remember from a movie of that period, over which he brings down a theatrical curtain, the final implicit statement that the viewer is tied to Lola's objectification as greatly as her filmic male admirers are.

All of this analysis should betray the fact that though Lola Montès stimulated me on an intellectual level, on an emotional level it failed to connect, although I'm not sure that wasn't Ophuls' intention. With all due respect to Mr. Sarris, Lola Montès has made it onto my all-time top 10. However, it has not yet supplanted either The Conformist or The Godfather Part II as a favorite. True, Lola Montès ends up having more in common with each of the aforementioned films than one would think. Each of the film's respective protagonists end up in a form of self-imposed exile. Each of the films share a novelistic, non-linear approach to storytelling. Each of the films are sprawling in their use of the external (worldwide physical locations) to focus narrowly on the internal (the motives of one individual).

But Lola Montès' technical virtuosity far surpasses that of the other two films. Where The Conformist and The Godfather Part II are dependent on montage to develop their theses, Lola Montès trusts its audience to make its way through its mise en scéne to get its subtext across. So I'm not entirely certain that with subsequent viewings I won't become more comfortable with its spectacle on a visceral level. Its unpredictable ending makes one want to rethink the whole movie. Given time, Lola Montès might just inch her way up to the very top of my own list of favorites.

Lola Montès is available on Criterion Blu-ray and DVD, Tuesday, February 16th.

DVD Review: A Christmas Tale (2008)

by Tony Dayoub



When I reviewed Un conte de Noël (A Christmas Tale) almost one year ago, I ended my post with this observation:

A memorable image comes midway in Un conte de Noël when [a central character] opens a present from a neighbor, a gold necklace with a heart-shaped charm. As she admires it, there is a cut to the charm spinning in the center of the film frame as the surrounding space dissolves into a snowy exterior of the family home. This central image somehow captures the ineffable feelings that arise when viewing this exquisite film, of a family that may not actually like each other much, but manage to hold deep love for each other nonetheless.

This ethereal image of the twirling bauble still lingers. It is the essential image of the film, distilling the warmth and fragility of the almost archetypal family story of the Vuillards.



But director Arnaud Desplechin elevates the familiar genre of the Christmas family reunion beyond its cliche saccharine elements, complicating the tale by introducing long-held resentments, rivalries, and recriminations between the siblings and their parents. The two characters who are often at the crux of most of these complications are the cancer-stricken Junon (Catherine Deneuve) and her least favorite son, Henri (Mathieu Amalric). So it is with no small tragicomic irony that it is only Henri's bone marrow that is deemed compatible with Junon's need. And it is a credit to Desplechin's profundity in fashioning this small fable that these two characters who dislike each other so immensely still love each other greatly, and in fact, identify with each other to the exclusion of the rest of their family. Thus does the gyrating trinket in the image come to literally depict the otherwise unknowable heart of gold buried deep within the spiteful characters.



It is because of Desplechin's ease at pictorially depicting such lush, passionate emotions in counterpoint to the quiet expressions of love and regret at the center of the family's interactions that this film made my top ten list for last year's films (and is seriously vying for top ten of the decade).



Criterion has wisely timed this week's release of the film on DVD and Blu-ray to the holiday season, when the movie's magic can most effectively touch the viewer. And what an astounding trio of supplements it includes: an essay by esteemed critic Phillip Lopate; a 35-minute documentary featuring interviews with Amalric, Deneuve, and Desplechin—all eloquently expressing their fascination with each other and the film (in English, surprisingly); and L'aimée, Desplechin's 2007 documentary about his paternal grandmother, her death when his father was only two, and how it impacted the development of his family. It is this last one hour doc that proves to be most insightful, illustrating how Desplechin's interactions with his own family in Roubaix, France may have served as the inspiration for A Christmas Tale—also set in Roubaix—released one year later.

NYFF09 Movie Review: Barbe Bleue (Bluebeard)

by Tony Dayoub



I'm starting to see a trend at this year's festival. Barbe Bleue (Bluebeard) is another film in this year's fest by a director who has earned a reputation for shocking moviegoers, Catherine Breillat. However, with Barbe Bleue she seduces us with the fearsome fairy tale's intrinsic luridness instead of her usual sensational embellishments. This exquisitely mounted fairy tale also, surprisingly, turns out to be quite a personal film for Breillat, making Barbe Bleue one of the festival's most wonderful surprises.

NYFF09 Movie Review: White Material

by Tony Dayoub



White Material must be the type of film that passes for an action flick in France. And you know what? That's not such a bad thing. Claire Denis' political thriller takes place in an unnamed African country and stars Isabelle Huppert as Maria Vial, a Frenchwoman who manages her ex-father-in-law's coffee plantation. A parallel story follows a wounded revolutionary, known as the Boxer (Isaach De Bankolé), who hides on her plantation while the local militia searches for him.

Movie Review: Inglourious Basterds

by Tony Dayoub



"We will be cruel to the Germans, and through our cruelty they will know who we are. They will find the evidence of our cruelty in the disemboweled, dismembered, disfigured bodies of their brothers we leave behind us, and the Germans will not be able to help themselves from imagining the cruelty their brothers endured at our hands, at our boot heels, and the edge of our knives. And the Germans will be sickened by us, the Germans will talk about us, and the Germans will fear us. Nazis ain't got no humanity! They need to be destroyed." - Lt. Aldo Raine

Happy Monday everyone. Hope you all had a great weekend. Let's get down to some way overdue business, and discuss the big movie this weekend, and perhaps this year, Quentin Tarantino's Inglourious Basterds. I saw it at noon on Friday, but held back on discussing it here for two reasons. One was my desire to contemplate the film a little longer than I usually do with other movies because it is complicated enough to merit such pondering. Notice I say complicated, not profound... more on that later. The second reason is because I plan on discussing it in toto, spoilers included. So anyone who hasn't seen it, please skip the rest of this post, go see it (requirement: you must see it in a theater), and come back once you have. Trust me, whether you end up liking the film or not, this is one flick that every movie lover should add to their lexicon.


Basterds is a World War II triptych with three protagonists: Nazi S.S. Colonel Hans Landa (Christoph Waltz) a suave snake who has earned the nickname of "Jew-Hunter" for his ability to ferret out Jews hiding throughout occupied France; Shosanna Dreyfus (Mélanie Laurent) is a young French Jew who manages to escape Landa's clutches before he massacres her family; and Lieutenant Aldo Raine (Brad Pitt) is the commander of a band of Jewish soldiers, nicknamed "the Basterds" by the Germans for the brutal retribution they carry out against them, always leaving scalped Nazi corpses behind. Eventually each protagonist's storyline crosses paths in curious ways, even if they themselves don't always meet, until synchronicity strikes at the end of the film, with Shosanna exacting her revenge on the Nazi elite at a movie premiere in a theater she owns, which also happens to be where the Basterds have decided to wipe out Hitler and his goons.

Much has been made of Tarantino's highly fictitious postmodern Holocaust revisionism for, as some say, irresponsibly playing fast and loose with facts and casting the former victims as vengeance seeking "perpetrators" no better than their Nazi executioners. However, unlike the recent District 9, which tries to trick the viewer into passivity by deceiving him with the faux-documentary look at Apartheid, Tarantino clearly instructs us from the beginning to look at Basterds as an alternate history, a fantasy, by beginning the movie with the words, "Once Upon a Time... in Nazi-occupied France..." He continues to encourage a dissociation from any reality by rooting his story in the history of film versus the history of the world. For instance, most if not all of the soundtrack is made up of musical cues from other films (and anachronistic ones at that). David Bowie's theme from Cat People (1982) is heard as Shosanna "gets into character" before the climactic movie premiere. Italian Western themes are also ubiquitous. And I just about had a heart attack after I heard the "Bath Attack" theme from Sydney J. Furie's B-movie, The Entity (1981), when Shosanna is reunited with Landa midway through the film. Truth be told, I might feel differently about the "exploitation" of the subject if I had any Holocaust survivors in my family. But I don't. And from my perspective, it doesn't look or feel like Tarantino is being disrespectful of the historical facts.




Instead, by inverting the players in his drama, Tarantino is simply presenting this violent parable as a reframing of history to highlight the ease with which genocide occurred, calling into question whether the complicity and collaboration by many Germans can truly be justified by the loyalist fervor that was promoted by the Nazi propaganda machine. In this case, it is the audience that is complicit in the cathartic joy of vengeance, cheering the "Bear Jew" (Eli Roth) when he whacks one Nazi soldier with a baseball bat, delighting at Bridget Von Hammersmark's (Diane Kruger) rage-filled dispatch of a young soldier after a personal insult, and reveling in Shosanna's laughing visage onscreen and aflame as the theater burns with the Nazi High Command locked inside. Tarantino is creating an alternate propaganda here. This last image of the burning theater more than anything recalls the evil of the gas chambers (its setting accusing moviegoers, us, of participating in the same celebration of killing the Nazis did), and any pleasure we take in the film's climactic destruction of the Germans complicates our usually automatic dismissal of any justifications heard in the past by Nazi apologists who say they were swept up by the populist frenzy at the time since we, the viewers, are also guilty of the same.

It just may be that some critics are right in accusing Inglourious Basterds of luridly exploiting a horrid chapter in humanity's history. But at least it does so without hypocrisy.

Blu-ray Review: Playtime (1967)

God bless Criterion for reissuing Playtime on Blu-ray. This visual Where's Waldo? for movie watchers depends on the clarity that only Blu can offer, due to French director Jacques Tati's decision to shoot in 70mm and avoid anything but wide-angle shots. The third in the series of films starring Monsieur Hulot, a forerunner of the far inferior but better known Mr. Bean (Rowan Atkinson), starts to minimize the character's footprint on the story, allowing other characters to initiate the gags in a virtual cityscape constructed by the production solely for use in the film. For director Tati (who also plays Hulot), Playtime is also a natural progression from his previous movies in that they all have a preoccupation with the effect of encroaching modernity on a romanticized past. This isn't immediately apparent in his earlier films, but even in L'ecole des facteurs (1947), there is the implied pressure of speed on the country postman Tati plays due to the conceptual invasion of air mail into his territory. By the time Hulot is introduced, as an agent of chaos in Les vacances de Monsieur Hulot (1953), the idea of technology disturbing the serenity of nature (in this case, a secluded beach) is brought closer to the foreground. In the next Hulot film, the charming Mon Oncle (1958), the incongruity between the modern Parisian suburbs and the quaint Old World Paris is the basis of the central plot, where by the end of the film one is a spectator to the demolishment of Hulot's enchanting neighborhood. In Playtime, the complete takeover of any recognizable Paris has already occurred. As the near plotless movie begins, a group of American tourists are by turns impressed with and disappointed by the modernization of Paris. All that's left is one little old flower lady to evoke the Paris of postcards, as even a famous landmark like the Eiffel Tower is reduced to a cameo in a reflection on a building's glass door. This time, even the comical Hulot is being crowded out to the sidelines, spending most of the film looking for his new employer in a maze of architecture that constitutes his new workplace. Tati utilized the film's scope and depth of field to pack each shot with so many visual gags (his films have very little dialogue) that it is impossible to catch them in one viewing. The Blu-ray enhances the possibility of being able to appreciate it fully in the best way one can short of seeing it the way Tati originally intended. And though this is a reissue from Criterion, it is not simply a port-over from the original disc (Update: My mistake... apparently it IS a port-over from a disc Criterion reissued in 2006; I was comparing the Blu-ray to my copy of Criterion's 2001 DVD). The film has been restored, and there are considerably more special features that go into some depth about how Tati, an affable comic but a despotic director, gambled his fortune on the making of this unusual film. These include a behind-the-scenes documentary called Au-delà de "Playtime," a rare BBC interview with Jacques Tati near the end of his life, an essay by film critic Jonathan Rosenbaum (who once worked as a script consultant for Tati), and more. Ultimately, Playtime failed upon its release because it was ahead of its time, forever relegating Tati to the category of "mad genius" for overreaching. But Criterion's new Blu-ray is a treasure to modern film buffs who are ripe for a reassessment of this visual oddity.

The Year 2003: Counting Down the Zeroes - The Dreamers (Bernardo Bertolucci)

In 1968, students protested in France over what were some archaic rules that called for strict separation between the sexes in the universities. Through a complicated chain of events, this led to the involvement of the revolutionary film directors and actors of the French New Wave after the closing of the Cinémathèque Française, and the ousting of its founder, Henri Langlois. Many have traced the beginnings of the liberated French culture of today to the days of the protests when the anarchic students of France, emulating the revolutionary nature of their distant brothers in America, took a stand against the antiquated mores of the previous generation's society. Eventually after several months of confrontations between the students and the police, it all culminated in a general strike that lasted for weeks in May, involved over 10 million workers despite no authorization being given by any labor unions, and ended changing French society forever. Bernardo Bertolucci's The Dreamers sets its story against the tumultuous backdrop of those events. It focuses on the near-incestuous relationship between French twins Theo (Louis Garrel) and Isabelle (Eva Green), as seen through the eyes of American student, Matthew (Michael Pitt). When the twins' parents go on an extended holiday, leaving them alone in their apartment, Michael soon gets lured into a perverse triangle with the immature siblings, enabling their transgressive sexual desires through him, if not necessarily through each other. Bertolucci uses the relationship to parallel France's violent rebellions, implying that American culture was the inspiration behind the country's social upheaval. We first see, Isabelle and Theo's fascination with Matthew, a strong silent type they are unaccustomed too in their native land. This is a reflection of their idolization of American cinema and its directors (Bertolucci directly quotes films as diverse as Samuel Fuller's Shock Corridor and Frank Tashlin's The Girl Can't Help It, among others). Once Matthew is drawn in by the two, the three bond over their different takes on American culture, debating the virtues of Chaplin vs. Keaton, Clapton vs. Hendrix. Theo's revolutionary spirit is lit by the gritty gangster films and rock-and-roll music slowly making its way overseas from the U.S. Isabelle, representative of the beauty and culture France has been so protective of for so many years, is a tad more resistant to follow her brother down the path of protest he seems intent on travelling. Finally, it is Michael who gives Theo the initiative to act and join the protesters outside the apartment where they've been conducting their taboo affair, by criticizing Theo's constant intellectual regurgitation of Maoist doctrine. He points out that Theo, and in fact, the French, only seem to approach revolution from a cerebral standpoint instead of engaging it viscerally. Unfortunately, Matthew, who so perceptively diagnosed Isabelle and Theo's dysfunctional infantilism in regard to their strange relationship, is unable to consummate the spark he lit within Theo, refusing to join him once the protests escalate into violence. It is this that points to Bertolucci's notion that Americans, so shining an example in its pursuit of change with its own protests during the Vietnam war, the civil rights movement, women's liberation, etc., ultimately gave up too easily. Watergate, the consumption era of the eighties, the refusal to let go of antiquated dependence on foreign oil, all can arguably be said to stem from our inability to stand up to the establishment the way the French did. Thus, it is the French who continued on to a new age of idealism, while leaving us behind. This post was first published at Film for the Soul for its continuing series on the best movies of the 2000s, Counting Down the Zeroes, on 7/19/09.