March 21st, 2007
Fitzcarraldo
Herzog, 1982
Fritzcaraldo is simply one of those films where you can’t help but just look at the screen in awe and wonder how they did it. Just like the monumental task the main character, Sweeney Fitzgerald, undertakes, the production of this film was a miracle. The film is about a business man who wants to get his boat to a remote Amazonian river, and the only way to do this is to haul it over a mountain. As you can imagine, the film contains some absolutely stellar images. Director Werner Herzog has always had a unique visual style, and it is most certainly resonant in Fritzcaraldo.
Kinski is, predictably, the star of the film and like always his performance is maddenly brilliant. Kinski has an incredible way with portraying people who are completely insane and obsessed, and his character and performance in Fritzcaraldo are no exception. If you want to get into Herzog, I think this is a good film to start out with, which shows how crazy his other films are as this movie is one of the most wild I’ve seen. Amazing and unbelievable images, fantastic direction, fanatical performance…If you can actually track down a copy of this, defiantly see this.
--------------------
Passion of the Christ
Gibson, 2004
The Passion of the Christ defiantly has a lot of downright haters. It probably wouldn’t have been as controversial if it didn’t have any. But I think the movie is downright amazing; disregarding all politics and religion, the film is a masterwork of photography, editing and is a prime example of the emotional power a movie can hold over a viewer. The cinematography is absolutely breathtaking, with startling and moving images throughout. Shots of Jesus dragging his cross down the road, or him being nailed to it are still resonant in my mind. The way it is edited so it cuts back to Jesus earlier life and the moments leading up to his capture also works amazingly. The score is also the photography’s equal except in the audio realm. It’s strong, stirring and commanding. The sheer emotional authority from the film is just so humbling – from seeing Jesus being tortured to his resurrection, I was at all times in awe. The Passion simply did an incredible job at drawing me into the last day of Jesus Christ.
--------------------
Three Colors: White
Kieślowski, 1993
White is the odd child in the family of Three Colors. It is often misunderstood, overlooked, and is quite different than its siblings. It is almost a dark comedy, where as the Blue and Red are a bit more dramatic. It might be that this is a dark comedy because the many character is simply pathetic however. He can’t keep his wife (or even consummate his marriage), he has to smuggle himself in an airplane (only to become lost luggage to his misfortune), and someone attempts to frame him for setting his wife’s hair salon on fire. Like I said, a bit pathetic.
But as the story progresses we learn more and more about the main character, and grow closer to him. His character develops and we begin to relate to his many plights, and can understand why he wants to do certain things, such as exact revenge on his wife. When our anti hero makes a new, but very depressed friend, things get very interesting and the story becomes much more serious. In one of my favourite scenes of the entire Colors trilogy, Karol (the main character), proves that he is actually a very compassionate and understanding human being. He might be a bit dimwitted and tends to get himself in embarrassing situations, but that doesn’t mean he is a bad human being.
But the center of the film, in the end, is Karol. Since White does such a fantastic job with setting up the many darkly humorous situations and scenes and showing what sort of sad things poor Karol has to deal with. But it also does a very great job at gradually developing the character and the supporting characters, as well as the themes. It’s both (darkly) funny, and very thematic. To top it all off are the beautiful visuals which accompany Karol throughout his misadventure and his gradual growth and understanding of the world and of love and of hate. As I said before, White is a lot like Karol – over looked and misunderstood – but that doesn’t keep it from being an exceptional film.
No comments:
Post a Comment