Baisers Volés (Stolen Kisses)

I’ve been brushing up on my cinematic history lately and was very glad to see Baisers Volés (Stolen Kisses), which is part of François Truffaut‘s Antoine Doinel series with the actor Jean-Pierre Léaud. It’s light and fun and follows Doinel through a series of jobs and romantic entanglements. There is a wonderful improvisational feeling to the whole film as it moves along. Léaud is very watchable and is filled with nervous energy. Much of the enjoyment is watching him walk and move and squirm. It’s a film that is light on plot and I loved seeing Antoine Doinel work as a private detective. He’s not good at his job (he’s not really sure what he wants) the work is really just a way to put him in to different situations. It’s nice to see a film that is light and funny done with skill.
The DVD is part of the Criterion Collection‘s The Adventures of Antoine Doinel and it has a few features on the disc that provide more context for the film. While the film is a light comedy, the situation in France in 1968 was completely different with the events of May 1968 and the uproar and the firing of Henri Langlois at the Cinémathèque Français. Baisers Volés begins with a shot of the front of the Cinémathèque and the camera then moves over to the military jail where we see Antoine Doinel. One of the extras on the disc is a newsreel of Truffaut and Jean-Luc Godard calling for the Cannes Film Festival to be cancelled (which it was). There is also an exerpt from an interview where Truffaut talks about Baisers Volés and explains how it was written and dissects a scene. Now I have to catch up on Truffaut’s other films.

July 6, 2005 , , ,

Get Behind Me Satan

Get Behind Me SatanThe White Stripes are a simple duo that have a knack for catchy, quirky songs that I love. With a bluesy feel and a 70s rock sound I always seem to have the same reaction and the album grows on me. At first I think that it’s ok and usually have an early favourite song that is the catchy single and then I listen a bit more and the other diverse songs start to grow on me. With Get Behind Me Satan, it’s the same. The moods shift from song to song and you never know what to expect other than a lovingly-crafted collection of songs. My favourite quirky song on the album is “Little Ghost” which is the infectious and old-timey story of a man who falls in love with a ghost. Fun and sometimes I even sing along.
The other interesting thing is that it was the first album that I bought from the iTunes Music Store. It was a very simple process and I can see doing it fairly often. With this album I also got the music video for “Blue Orchid” (an energetic romp through an old house directed by Floria Sigismondi) as well as a digital booklet in PDF form. Neat.

July 5, 2005 , ,

Batman Begins

Christopher Nolan revitalizes and restarts the Batman films with Batman Begins. A zeroing of the cinematic odometer was desperately needed with the Batman films. The last bunch of them were laughably bad… I don’t think that I’ve actually watched all of any of the ones not directed by Tim Burton who struck a good balance between the humorous and the frightening. Batman Begins is built around fear and how we deal with it. It could even be a slightly transposed response to terrorism as this Batman first must struggle with his own demons (and the bats in his head) before he can fight crime. It’s a clever and dark film that shows the process that Bruce Wayne followed to get into the costume. What was interesting in the film is the way that it doesn’t completely sever the ties with the Tim Burton Batman and it has a neat ending that ties into the first film.
The cast of the new film is great and Christian Bale internalizes the darkness into his Bruce Wayne before Batman. There are also a surprising number of larger stars in supporting roles. I particularly enjoyed Michael Caine as Alfred and Morgan Freeman as Lucius Fox. They bring some wit and weight to the film, which could have been bogged down by seriousness and solemnity. Cillian Murphy is also great as the Scarecrow and Gary Oldman has a great interpretation as the cop who eventually will become Commissioner Gordon.
Most people have absorbed parts of the Batman story through the various incarnations over the years, and it’s fun to watch how Nolan introduces various parts and adds his own spin to them. With the action he wisely chooses to keep things more suggestive than cartoony, which makes it more believable as well as establishing a level of plausibility. Filled with memorable images and production design, it shows us a few new things along a well-worn path. An entertaining summer movie with a bit more thought than the average summer blockbuster.
Another neat thing about seeing the film was watching it at the Valley Drive-in. It was great to see it on a big screen outside and once or twice I think that I saw a real bat flying around.

July 4, 2005 , , ,

Birth

BirthBirth is a odd, subtle, and haunting film about love and loss directed by Jonathan Glazer. The film is built around an amazing performance by Nicole Kidman as a woman who can’t let go of her husband, who died 10 years earlier. Then a 10 year old boy appears and says that he is her husband reincarnated. What is great about the film is that it works very visually and has a wonderful ambiguity throughout. It’s been a long time since I’ve seen a film the exists so much in a visual sense. Spaces and faces often tell the story which is constructed out of absences. We fill in the blanks that exist in the film and nothing is completely clear. The film is also manipulative (which I loved) and it slowly moved me toward one point of view and then switched it around. At times I was reminded of the films of Stanley Kubrick in the strong visual storytelling style and use of zooms. I love seeing a film that has the confidence to not tell me what to think through expository dialogue or other obvious techniques. You have to pay attention and watch as the pieces slowly begin to connect. Birth is a film that sticks with you as you roll the ideas around in your head for days. By shifting a situation that is common or cliché (lost love returns, someone begins an affair, jealousy over old boyfriend, can love ever die?) and adding a twist (lost love is a 10 year old boy) it allows us to see things that we wouldn’t normally see. Where do you draw the line? We watch the characters struggle with these strange dilemmas that are disguised and transposed challenges that people face every day.

July 1, 2005 , , , ,

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