The Hour of the Wolf, by Ingmar Bergman

It is evident that German expressionism and films from the Weimar period had a significant impact on Bergman when he made The Hour of the Wolf. The interest and fascination with psychology and the parallel worlds created by the mind were a concerned explored in German expressionism and revisited and re-explored by Bergman. The Hour of the Wolf seems to have a combination of elements from Nosferatu and The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari because it intertwined concept of the supernatural with the interrogative of insanity and obsession.

In addition, the aesthetic choices made by Bergman are in alignment with German expressionism. There is an extensive use of chiaroscuro where darkness predominates the frames while white and light are rare and very suggestive. For instance, Alma tends to be illuminated while the people around her are under dark shadows. This evokes the idea that she is different, pure, and sane. In addition, the use of key light creates pockets of shadows, morphing people’s faces into malicious smiles or perilous ravens.

Even though this film would not be necessarily classified as a horror film, it is definitely unsettling. The use of fast editing choreographed with sudden high pitching was very effective. In fact, it made me jump off my seat more than a couple of times. This is mostly evident in the sequence where Johan (the husband) kills the young boy. Distorted close-ups of different angles of the fight between the boy and Johan are edited at a fast pace combined with hunting and uncomfortable music. In addition, once Johan has killed the boy he throws him into the water, which is pitch black and denser than it should be, resembling a puddle of blood.

Even though this film might be significantly different from the rest of Bergman’s films, it has in common the strong presence of touch. This is a theme that is elaborated throughout the whole film. For example, there is the constant refusal of Johan towards Alma’s touch, and a common desire of the women of the castle to be touched and have contact with Johan. However, this theme reaches its ecstatic point towards the end of the film when Johan finds the presumably dead body of his life long obsession, Veronica Vogler. Through a close-up, the camera moves along Veronica’s inert and naked body following Johan’s hand. The interesting fact is that his touch is what seems to bring her back to life, delving into the ideas of resurrection, deception, and madness.

Rome Open City, by Roberto Rossellini

War films are not my favorite kind of films. It is difficult for me to connect and relate with the characters usually because the extensive scenes of warfare and gunfire tend to alienate me. This is why I was surprised by the fact that I felt so much and connected in such a deep level with Rossellini’s Rome Open City. Even though Italian films of the 20’s are well known for their attempts to portrait the world as it was, Rome Open City was the first of this series of films in which I truly felt as if I was following and witnessing real lives, feeling, and events. It appears be a documentary without loosing the qualities of a feature film.

The acting took the film to a complete different level. You can feel the characters’ emotions pouring out of their faces with such naturalness and sincerity that is hard to imagine they are actually acting. Thus, the connection and sympathy created between the audience and characters makes it unavoidable to be completely submersed in their story.

Nevertheless, I have to confess that I might be significantly bias when analyzing this film. My grandfather was a journalist part of the Italian Resistance (Partigiani). He used to tell me plenty of stories about the quests he and his friends would go through to print articles and flyers denouncing their situation. In addition, he would never miss on telling us the time he was taken by the German army and was extremely close to be shoot with other prisoners. It might be true that because I had all these stories in the back of my mind I was able to relate deeply with the characters. For example, I still remember vividly the scene in which Pina is killed in front of her son. It might be because Rome Open City echoes all the stories I listened to when growing up. Nevertheless, it cannot be denied that Rossellini mastered the editing, mise-en-scene, and acting.

The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie, by Luis Buñuel

In this film, Buñuel examines and criticizes, once again, the higher class of society by revealing the absurdities they engage in to maintain proper appearances and manners. He does so by using a surrealistic course of actions delineated by dreams within dreams.

The interaction of the bourgeoisie with other social strata is ridiculous, resulting on the opposite outcome the characters were trying to convey. The social class that is looked down becomes their own instead of the one they were criticizing and trying to ridicule. For example, after they explain the proper recipe and right ingredients to make a martini, they invite their driver to have a drink with them. They give him a martini and stare at him closely to point out how little class and education he has given the way he drank it. However, it is evident for everyone, except the bourgeois in the film, that the driver nervously drinks up his martini as fast as he can only because he wants to give an end to such an awkward situation. In this scene, the camera moves quickly into a close-up of the driver’s face, so the audience is able to scrutinize his actions like the rest of the people in the room. Because this camera movement places so much emphasis and focus on the martini, it presents with certainty the idea that he has been given poison instead of gin. Drinks and poison are recurrent themes in this film. Another example is the Bishop’s story about the death of his parents who were poisoned to death. In addition, one of the soldiers, that opens up and relates events of his childhood, confesses that he poisoned his father following the wishes of his mother’s ghost.

It is interesting how Buñuel shows the high levels of awkwardness and oddity when the bourgeois are invaded by human instincts which do not make concessions across social classes. In this case, he uses sexual impulses to show how incongruous this social class is. They look extremely awkward when trying to have sex: they cannot take off their clothes and do not really know what to do with the animal instincts that were invading their bodies. Such instincts were considered so extraneous to their social class that, in order to fulfill them, they go through the trouble of sneaking out of their own house to have sex in the garden so their guests would not notice what they were doing.

Another interesting point made about the dominant role and differences of social classes is conveyed by the use of sound. Traffic noise mists up important conversations regarding economics and politics. This is a sharp criticism to the social system because it implies that this kind of topics, which affect every strata of society, can only be heard and discussed by the affluent. The rest of the population is kept in the darkness of confusing noises so that they won’t learn about the actions these people engage in, such as transporting and selling cocaine.

Wild Grass, by Alan Resnais

I wanted to watch this film because I enjoyed a lot Hiroshima Mom Amour and I was curious to find differences and similarities between these two films. However, I was mostly attracted to Wild Grass to attempt to discover whether or not Resnais’ geniality to manipulate and experiment with cinema’s conventions and boundaries could still be considered prominent and transgressive.

If I had to describe my impression of Wild Grass in one word, it would be perplexity. I think this is one of those films that you have to watch a couple of times to truly understand it. I was allured by the impression I was getting the meaning of the film throughout its first half to realize, however, that my interpretations were far from the actual meaning of the story. For instance, I had initially thought that George’s wife was his daughter, which significantly changes the understanding of their relationship and course of actions.

On the other hand, I was pleased to see Hiroshima Mom Amour echoed throughout Wild Grass. For example, there is an extensive use of voice over and internal monologues. The effects of these monologues in the viewer resembles the waves of the sea: they take us extremely close to the characters by entering into their minds to then push us away and alienate us as we loose track of the central meaning and sense of their dialogues. In addition, as in Hiroshima Mom Amour the characters’ faces are not shown to the audience only after a significant long time.

An interesting, and arguably obvious, difference between Hiroshima Mom Amour and Wild Grass is Resnais’ play with color. I could not avoid wondering how he would have used color in Hiroshima Mom Amour given the fact that its use and manipulation was so obvious in Wild Grass. Neon lights are present in almost every scene, tinting the whole frame with green, red, blue, and yellow tonalities. Color is meticulously present not only in the choice of lighting, but also in every mise-en-scene. For example, the color blue plays an important role throughout the film. It represents the sky, the only place where Marguerite Muir is completely fulfilled, free, and happy. In addition, blue signifies beginnings and endings, death and birth. George’s and Marguerite’s relationship becomes tangible within the confines of a blue-glass building. However, this newly born relationship fades away and dies, along with their lives, in the plain accident (once again, they were confined by the color blue). The presence of blue as a signifier of death and endings can also be found in the fact that the first and only time when George complains about his wife, confessing the precarious state of their relationship, is when he is painting his house blue. On the other hand, red represents, as usual, passion and desire. Marguerite has a fluffy and lion-like red hair, symbolizing a forbidden fruit and object of desire.

In this film, Resnais seems to incorporate in a serious yet ironical degree, different genre and film conventions. For example, the sequence in which George decides to leave the wallet he had found at the police station, seems a tribute to film noir. The combination of low-key lighting with window blinds that create horizontal shades of light and shadow are very characteristic of this film genre. As to make such resemblance more prominent, there are deformed shadows of people reflected in a glass wall. Another film convention Resnais plays with is the over-imposition of imaginary actions as the characters meditate and decide on their course of action. Finally, it cannot be ignored the apparent end of the film in which George and Marguerite embrace with an over the top, old-Hollywood style kiss while the word “Fin” flashes by.

The Rules of the Game, Jean Renoir

Renowned film critic Siegfried Kracauer once said that films are hieroglyphics of a society because they represent the deep worries, concerns, realities, humor, and trends of their period. That was the case of The Rules of the Game, which enraged the audience of its time as they felt identified with the protagonists of the film. Even thought The Rules of the Game would not be necessarily classified as a realist film, Renoir was able to accurately convey the mindset of this period in a crudely realistic tone. Frivolity was used to cover up the fatality related to death and war in which everyone’s minds were focused. By 1939, when The Rules of the Game was first released, France had recently joined Great Britain to fight against Germany in World War II. The fear of an unavoidable period of massacre, destruction, and economic distress was the blueprint for the film. The presence of war was similar to the air that fills every room, scene, and atmosphere: something that is apparently invisible but nonetheless unavoidably present. As Renoir explains, “knowing that we were going to have war, in being absolutely convinced of it, my work was impregnated with it, despite myself” (Sesonske, 6). However, by not talking directly about war, the message of the film has a more intrinsic impact than it would otherwise.

Violence is represented in an incredibly raw and direct fashion during the hunting sequence. The preparation for the hunt mirrors different bands of soldiers preparing for combat. The guests check their weapons and proper locations to settle down like soldier would do to ensure a complete extermination of their enemies. Once the hunting begins, it becomes almost unbearable to watch as repetitive shots of rabbits, falling and twitching, seem to have no end. In this sequence, Renoir switches his style: the camera pans steadily at an eye level angle and it takes on a documentary tone as it records authentic death and killing. The intensity and memorability of this sequence lays on the numerous shots of different length of rabbits running in the field accompanied by complete silence. Tension builds up as the apparent peaceful scenery does not truly cover up the morbidity of the scene. The camera seems to takes on the point of view of the rabbits whose lives will be interrupted by gunfire in a manner of minutes. In fact, the first shot abruptly breaks this absolute silence, violating not only the prey’s lives but also the audience’s audiovisual senses by creating a shock effect. As rabbit after rabbit falls face flat in the ground, a longer shot focuses on one rabbits while it twitches in the ground until its last drop of life evaporates. Renoir was especially skillful in integrating this sequence in the film. The field of the villa covered by dead rabbits mirrors to an almost perfect degree the real battlefields paved with dead bodies. Even though Renoir never explicitly acknowledges war and death, this sequence is exponentially more dreadful and effective than an enacted killing scene would have been. It is a peak beneath the surface of this society and into their real unconscious and motivations.

Toy Story 3, by Lee Unkrich

Going through some of my old files, I ran into this little piece I had forgotten to have written and thus never published. I was still in Aussie when I saw this movie, so reading this few lines revived many of the nourishing memories I have from that incredible summer. Coincidently, yesterday I met with some of the people I meet half way across the globe. So I decided to publish it even if it might not be quite updated. Here it is:

I finally went to the world’s largest IMAX. Its size is overwhelming, however, seeing a feature film projected on it did not make me as tired as I was expecting. Being part of the Disney and Pixar generation, and thus having grown up along side of their characters and stories, I could not miss the continuation of Toy Story even if I had not especially liked the previous two.

It was interesting seeing Toy Story with another mind-set. In fact, I was talking about it with my mom and it was interesting to compare our completely different interpretations of the underline meanings of the story. She saw the film as making a stand towards our materialistic culture characterized by not valorizing things and constantly feeling a need to buy something new. Instead, I watched it with my 10-year-old mind-set, seeing it as a lovely fantasy world which I have always secretly hoped it was true.

Black Swan, Darren Aronofsky

Everybody kept telling me how amazing this film was, but during the hectic times of final exams I was not able to see it before leaving the US for christmas break. I was so upset, sure that Black Swan had to be one of those visually striking films that deserve the big screen rather than the monitor of my mac. I was right about that. But luckily, given all the buzz that the film has received, it found its way out of the small independent movie theaters into the commercial ones, and it was still on once I came back to Boston. It was definitely a beautiful film. The use of lighting was impressive. Natalie Portman seems to dance with the camera, and thus the audience. Nevertheless, I did find the aesthetics and use of black and white a bit overdone.

Apart from the visuals and the aesthetics, I had many problems with this film. It did not go deep enough into subject and issues it raises. For example, the fact that she cuts herself to stay in control of something in her life was not truly analyzed. This issue is something that is very present in our society, even if it goes unnoticed most of the time. People tend to know and talk a lot about eating disorders but not about other kind of coping mechanisms such as cutting yourself. However, the film uses it more as a way to gross out the public rather than to make a stand.

The ending completely ruined the film for me. It takes away any kind of credibility that it was trying to build all along. The fact that she supposedly danced beautifully for her whole performance even after having stabbed herself just turned me off completely. If they were doing a psychological film, they should have drilled more on that instead of going off tangents that distill its credibility. Along the same lines, what was going on with her mother? Couldn't they honestly make a better casting decision?

It might be that I had very high expectation for this film, but it just didn't work out for me.