Klown

2010 comedy

Rating: 15/20

Plot: Frank's having trouble with his girlfriend who has begun to doubt his abilities to be a father. A few other ill-timed mistakes (for example, jizzing on his mother-in-law's face) also threaten to end their relationship. To prove that he can be a good father, he kidnaps his nephew for a perverse camping trip. Things don't go very well.

These characters are from a Danish television show that was compared to Curb Your Enthusiasm, so I decided to check it out. The comparisons are apt ones. This finds humor in awkwardness and rude behavior. There's not a lot here that you'd feel all that comfortable watching with your mother. The "pearl necklace" advice and execution that I referenced above (yes, only for the jizz variation) is just one example of how this movie just doesn't understand boundaries. The characters, the kind who you like to watch on the screen even though they're not the least bit likable, sort of unapologetically and lackadaisically venture through taboo land. You can maybe believe that they're doing some of these things in a movie because they're the kinds of things you might see American movie characters. What you can't believe is that they're doing these things so casually. It's gross-out comedy but with subtitles which makes it perfectly ok for a movie snob like me to enjoy. I don't want to go into details too much because like the best comedies, this works because of its surprises. I'd hate to ruin that. Be warned though--you'll probably be offended. There's a quick Chaplin reference in this, a poster of The Kid. This movie has a kid, too. Of course, I don't believe Chaplin ever ejaculated on anybody in any of his movies. Maybe in The Gold Rush?

The Invention of Dr. Nakamats

2009 documentary

Rating: 14/20

Plot: A few days in the life of the titular inventor, a Japanese genius with well over 3,000 patents including, apparently, the floppy disc.

He speaks about himself in the third person, takes pictures of every one of his meals to chronicle his eating, claims that he will live to be 160 years old, egotistically names things after himself, gets only 4 hours of sleep a night, takes credit for inventing glass (OK, that's partially taken out of context), can tell how good a camera is by smelling it, invented radio-controlled roller skates, and created a pencil and notepad that can be used underwater since his best ideas come when he is 5 seconds from death and needs to nearly drown himself in order to invent. Nakamats is eccentric, almost the point where you wonder if he's just dicking around to mess with the documentarians, but he is fairly interesting. There's almost this arrogance or feeling of self-importance that makes him unlikable. At the same time, he's such a funny little man that you wind up liking him. The documentary filmmakers don't get in the way at all here. Nobody attempts to explain or refute or anything else. You get about an hour of Nakamats doing his Nakamats thing, about the time that you can handle.

Hunger

1966 Dutch feel-good movie

Rating: 17/20 (Mark: 17.5/20)

Plot: It's late-19th-century Norway, and everything is grayish brown. A hopeful writer wanders despairing streets. He looks for work, loses his sanity, dreams of love, and has a rumbly in his tummy. Gradually, his grip on reality slips more and more. He takes his frustrations out on a candle.

Ah, anonymous, this film's actually Danish and filmed in Oslo. I don't know what's in the gray waters in Scandanavia, but something's got to making the Dutch so bleak. Now that I know it's Danish, I'm instantly reminded of Carl Theodor Dreyer's work. This is a bleakness with a fervor, a provocative bleakness. I love this kinds of movies where almost nothing at all happens for almost two hours, yet it somehow remains captivating and moving. And I was moved by this haunting, dismal movie. At the center of things is the performance of Per Oscarsson who plays the starving protagonist. He's in nearly every single shot and luckily, was very easy to connect with. He effectively uses abnormal nonverbal communication and body movements to realistically portray this guy who is very obviously losing it. You can't quit put your finger on it, but from the very first scenes where he eats a piece of paper and promises a woman he'll buy bread from her at ten o'clock the next day, you know that something's not right with this guy. My brother had previously seen this and had read the Knut Hamsun novel and kept making the claim that we were dealing with an unreliable third-person narrator. That's a funny thing to say about a movie, but in a way it's accurate. There seems to be a point in this movie where the guy and reality officially part ways, but thinking back, I can't decide what that moment is. A lot of this seems to be happening and a lot of this seems to be an interpretation of a sick mind of what's happening and a lot of this might not be happening at all. The ambiguity is fascinating and adds a depth to the story. Hunger is shot starkly and beautifully, one of those movies where the setting, filthy and desolate, is as much a character in the movie as any of the people. The guy's rotten teeth are also almost a character on their own. And although there's this staggering, almost engulfing bleakness, there's also a bit of humor in this. This is a great movie, and I'm really glad my brother made me watch it. I still feel bad about eating sausage while watching this poor guy.

Spoorloos

1988 psychological thriller

Rating: 16/20

Plot: Two lovebirds, Rex and Saskia, are on holiday in France to do some cycling and bickering. While at a gas station, Saskia is abducted by a sociopath professor. Rex obsesses for the next three years, eventually getting the attention of Raymond, the abductor. They meet, and Raymond promises Rex that he'll give him the details of what happened to his girlfriend if he travels to France with him.

It took me a while for me to understand what's good about this. The music sickened me, and visually, it resembled something produced cheaply for television. Saskia blah-blah-blahed about some dumb dream, and they got gas several times. I had gas, too. I was beginning to lose my patience, wondering if this would remain as exciting as a road trip with people you don't necessarily like to talk to. Gradually, however, this got its hooks in me, and I was drawn into the mystery of the story and the passions/obsessions of both Rex and Raymond. And when Raymond begins detailing for Rex, I was completely captivated. It's impossible not to share Rex's plight from the moment he meets Raymond until the end of the movie. I got used to the bad music and 80s look of the movie. What was more difficult to get used to was the genuine feeling of unease Spoorloos gives you.

Ordet

1955 Carl Dreyer movie

Rating: 17/20

Plot: Old pious Morten had a farm. E-I-E-I-O. And on this farm, he had three sons. E-I-E-I-O. Agnostic Mikkel lives on the farm with his pregnant wife Inger and two daughters. Johannes is nuts, frequently wandering to the fields and announcing that he is the Messiah. And youngest son Anders wants to marry Anne, the daughter of a tailor who Morten doesn't like very much because of differences in their religious faiths. So they cluck cluck there, and they cluck cluck here. Here a cluck cluck. There a cluck cluck. Everywhere a cluck cluck.

Ordet (The Word) is a sneakily dense, slow-moving but intense look at religion, specifically the issue of faith. I didn't completely understand it. I really wish the differences between Peter the tailor and Morten's religious ideas were made a little clearer. Morten was a happy Christian while Peter was more of a depressed worshipper, but what does that mean exactly? This builds so slowly that I initially thought I was bored out of my mind. The camera moves slowly, the characters talk and move slowly, and the backgrounds are static and too gray even for a black and white film. But gradually, I was hypnotized by the thing, drawn into the characters' lives, so that when the pair of climaxes came, they were deep and meaningful whereas they might seem trite and meaningless if I just told you what they were. There's not a lot of camera movement, but when it happens, the movements seem so important. Really, there's something seemingly important about the lack of movements too, I guess. There's a focus on the characters, no setting distractions except for maybe the occasional lamp or picture, and almost nothing that can be described as action. It's that minimal quality that give the relationships and conversations the characters have this quiet intensity. The ending is powerful, but, at least for me, thematically perplexing. I was pretty sure I knew what the film was trying to say (again, re: faith), but the more I thought about it, the more I was confused about why the movie ended like it did. That ending was very well handled, however, with the same dreamy rhythm of the rest of the film, sans music, extraneous movements, or wasted emoting. I look forward to watching this again in another format (I had a vhs copy, so a Criterion release of this would be nice upgrade) to uncover some of the mysteries and symbols (a bird cage? candles and lamps? Johannes stick? the relationship of Anders and Anne as a marriage of religious ideas?) tucked inside it.

Recommended by Cory. And if you're reading this, R.D., I'd be interesting in hearing what you think about this one.

Europa

1991 movie

Rating: 17/20

Plot: World War II has ended and idealistic American Leopold arrives in Germany. His German uncle gets him a job as a "sleeping car conductor," and while training for the job, he falls in love with the daughter of the owner of the railroad. He soon finds himself in the middle of a conflict between occupying Allied forces and some Nazi terrorists called Werewolves. It hurts his job performance.

Lars von Trier recently said, "I am the best film director in the world." I'm not even paraphrasing or taking him out of context. That's what he said and that's what he meant. Whenever I watch his movies, I can almost hear him whispering that from behind me. I'll be watching a scene, maybe even mesmerized by a scene, and I'll hear him whisper, "Psst. Shane, I am the best film director in the world." That's why I'm almost always ready to hate his movies. And while he is pretentious, manipulative, and artsy-fartsy, the movies are at the very least interesting and more often than not really good. Ten minutes into this one (which my brother recommended), I thought, "Finally! A Lars von Trier movie I can trash." But gradually, the hypnotic narration (literally here), the film's mesmerizing style, and the Kafka-esque story sucked me in. There's a sort of second-person narration that puts you in the center of the noirish thriller, and even if you don't really like the main character or if the actor who plays him isn't very good, you still identify with him. The narration, with some creepy background music, also sets the tone and creates this ambiance for the rest of the film. The rest of the film is stylistic, likely a love-it-or-hate-it type feel, that fits the noirish story perfectly. Crisp black and white with occasional red splashes, double exposure (or whatever it's called...the actors are clearly acting in front of screens most of the time), and striking imagery lend a unique feel to this one. Lots of stylistic trickery going on here, but I never saw through it. My only gripe would be with the acting which seems really awkward and lifeless at times. Still, this is a really good movie that won't be easy to forget.

This might be called Zentropa in America. I'm not sure why that'd be the case though.

Medea

1988 adaptation of the mythological tale

Rating: 16/20

Rating: Based on the play by Euripides, this is the dismal tragedy of the title bitch who, scorned by her lover Jason (the apples and Argonauts guy), goes apeshit and starts killing everybody. After all, hell hath no fury.

This is the realization of great director Carl Th. Dreyer's Medea script by wannabe great but pretentious director Lars von Trier. Dreamy, dreary, and beautiful, this old-looking and almost otherworldly film resembles Joan of Arc and the vampire movie as it lilts through a poetic sludge. The film starts and ends with water, and in between, a whole bunch of stuff--grasses, sheets, character's clothes, clouds--is filmed in a way that also reminds you of water. Definitely not for everybody as the fuzziness and unorthodox camera angles will likely get on most people's nerves. But it works to create a haunting atmosphere and wipe out any memory you might have of any Shirley Temple movies you might have seen. The acting's strong although the script sometimes isn't. I don't know if Dreyer was intending this as a silent film or talky, but I almost think this would have been more effective sans dialogue. Likely, I'll revisit some of the macabre imagery of this one in my nightmares.

The Five Obstructions

2003 documentary

Rating: 16/20

Plot: Pretentious filmmaker Lars von Trier challenges pretentious filmmaker Jorgen Leth to remake five times a short film called The Perfect Human from 1967. Before Leth runs off to do so, however, Trier gives him obstructions--no shot more than 12 frames, for example. The maid wonders which one ejaculated on the linoleum.

Fascinating look at the creative process unfortunately with a twat count that breaks springs on the geiger counter in my neighbor's walk-in closet. The dialogue between the two is often over my head, and I wonder about those subtitles. The original The Perfect Human was fun enough, jerky and pretentious, and each of the five remakes (four actually since von Trier takes on the last one in a difficult-to-swallow display of grandiosity) delivers. The first obstruction brought giggles, the second nearly made me cry, the third made me cough until I started bleeding from the nose, and the fourth (animated) one gave me a seizure. Perfect case of something I can't completely understand because I'm not smart enough and don't own a bowtie but could still appreciate. Good stuff and oddly inspiring. It inspired me to put my hand firmly down the front of my pants! Booyah!

The seventh obstruction:

Vampyr

1932 silent (?) vampire movie

Rating: 17/20

Plot: Allan Grey, a wandering soul obsessed with the study of demons and witches and other occult interests, travels to a creepy castle. He begins seeing weird things that may or may actually be happening--shadows move around by themselves, old men deliver packages to be opened after their deaths, a grave being un-dug, general creepiness. Einstein and a woman somehow become involved, and characters read excerpts from a dull book about vampires.

First off, I really had trouble following the plot of this one. It's dreamy, wandering, and hallucinatory, so I eventually shut off the part of my brain that tries to figure out what's going on and just let it soak in the imagery and ingenious special effects. I imagine these are images that hadn't been seen by people when this came out in the early 30's. There are some odd camera angles and movements, most notably in a scene where characters are carrying a coffin with a glass window in the lid out of the castle mostly shown from the perspective of the corpse within. The effects--dancing disembodied shadows, "backwards" digging, wandering lights--work with the use of lighting and almost no sound (there's some barely audible music and a tiny bit of German [?] dialogue) to create an absorbing atmosphere that make this a genuinely creepy experience. My only complaint would be the middle third of the movie in which there's far too much plot development (and confusion) and the interjected reading from a vampire book which disrupts with an almost documentary feel, but the first and last thirds move like a slow-motion dream with lots of images that would work without the narrative as individual artistic achievements. Cool horror movie.

Here I am enjoying Vampyr in the last picture before my favorite hat was further molested by the dog:

Haxan: Witchcraft through the Ages

1922 Danish silent documentary

Rating: 16/20

Plot: The documentary covers the history of witchcraft and proffers an explanation that hysteria was the cause of strange symptoms that were seen as signs that a person was a witch in the Middle Ages and beyond. Yeah, it seems like odd subject matter for a 1922 silent documentary.

This had to have been the feel-good hit of the summer of '22! The movie had a little bit of everything! An Al Gory slide-show presentation with shots of diseased people, bewitched shoes, witches milking broomsticks, orgies. A pointer was even used to specify! There were monks poisoned by cat feces and dead bird juice, monks later transformed into vile grabass monks!There were numerous scenes of demon fellatio! Witches dancing with reindeer! A woman with gigantic hands shoveling what appeared to be syrup into her mouth! Yep! She was a witch! Filthy elderly person torture! Insect demon birth! Horse skeletons! Disembodied souls and ghostly-white witches superimposed over cloudy skies! Soup made from babies and toads! Two scenes (I do not shit you) in which demons ferociously churned butter. Old women throwing buckets of piss at cursed doors. Homoerotic S&M scenes! Preconception abortions. Urinating kitty vandals! More torture! Satan bludgeoning nuns! As usual, the pictures speak more loudly than the words. Satanic blow jobs:

There was some interesting information in this odd little movie, and lots of the camera trickery/special effects were probably pretty innovative for 1922--see the aforementioned witches, the scenes of hell, and especially the nifty stop animation used to animate coins. A lot of the imagery reminded me of F.W. Murnau's Faust which came out four years later. There could have been less narration (I'm not Danish, after all, and therefore do not like to read), and I never was clear whether there was a tongue firmly planted in cheek with this or not. Honestly, it doesn't matter. It's worth seeing just for those two butter-churning scenes.

Note: This was rereleased in '68 with a Jon Luc Ponty jazzy score and William S. Burroughs narration. I've got that on now, and despite the fact that I love Burroughs' voice and like Ponty just fine, this shorter version really doesn't work at all. Those silly avant-gardists!

Trivia: The director, Benjamin Christensen, actually plays both the devil and Jesus.

Here I am learning all about the history of witchcraft: