RADIO ON - CRITERION CHANNEL

This review originally written for DVDTalk.com in 2007.

Christopher Petit's 1979 independent feature, Radio On, is a brittle portrait of the despair and ennui of 1970s Britain. Rather than indulge in chronicling any particular scene from the time or resort to the usual ripped-from-the-headlines tactics, Petit instead chooses to follow one man over the course of a few days as a portrayal of the feelings of hopelessness many were experiencing. With bleak black-and-white cinematography by Martin Schäfer, who regularly worked with Wim Wenders (one of the producers on the film), Radio On offers a Britain that is perpetually gray. Come, Armageddon, come.

Robert (David Beames) is an all-night DJ in a factory who spends his own boring nights trying to alleviate the tedium of workers on the graveyard shift. He sets aside their banal requests and plays his own choices in hopes of giving them "something better." When his brother mysteriously dies, Robert goes on a road trip to Bristol in search of answers about what happened. Only those aren't the answers he really wants. The questions that loom over him are more existential. Though he never says so out loud, Robert is really searching for some kind of meaning in his dull existence.

Along the way, he meets other people who have been set adrift. There is the Scottish soldier (Andrew Byatt) whose pain at losing his friend on a tour of duty in Ireland has left him emotionally crippled and defensive. Then there is the pair of German women, one who hates all men and the other who is trying to find her ex-husband and reclaim custody of their daughter. Like Robert, these people feel that something has been taken from them, that their life is absurd and pointless. As the grieving mother explains, she feels homesick in England, stranded in a world where no one speaks the language she was born into. For her it may be a literal language barrier, but she might as well be speaking metaphorically. Robert borrows her phrase book and tries out different sayings in both English and German, and she kindly corrects his pronunciation. It doesn't matter that they are saying the same things, the sound of it will never match up.

If there is anything that provides comfort in Radio On, it's music. The DVD box quite loudly trumpets the soundtrack, listing the bands and the songs featured. The tracks are so important, Petit even lists them in the opening credits, rather than sticking them at the end like we're used to. The chosen cuts fit perfectly, the disaffected tones of the music emerging from the ashes of punk echoing the disaffection of Petit's script. Featured here are David Bowie, Kraftwerk, Robert Fripp, Ian Dury, Lene Lovich, Devo, and more. Regardless of what Robert is doing, he always returns to the music, turning on the radio in the car or playing a jukebox in a diner. It comforts him, acts as a friend when he has no one else to share the moment with.

At the same time, music also provides a bridge between people. The last message Robert received from his brother was a birthday present of an envelope full of Kraftwerk tapes. On the road, when he meets Just Like Eddie (Sting) at a gas station, they find common ground by singing Eddie Cochran songs, whereas when the soldier rejects what Robert puts on the stereo, you know their relationship will quickly end.

Petit builds Radio On out of lengthy, languorous shots, letting the landscape pass without comment, the periods of time where there is no dialogue stretching as far as the patches of road traversed. Schäfer keeps his camera at a distance rather than going in for the traditional close-ups, favoring two-person shots over cutting back and forth in the rare conversations. The viewer is kept far enough away as to feel that he or she is on the outside looking in, not unlike how Robert feels. We're the foreigners in his existence. Robert may not be engaged in what is happening, but there is turmoil, poverty, and moral decay all around him. The same radio that provides him with music also delivers the news of society's ills. These problems don't touch him, but they contribute to the dread that permeates the air.

By the end of Radio On, Robert has driven as far as he can go--quite literally. Parked on the edge of a deep hole, his car dies. Rather than fight against it, he opens his car doors and cranks up the Kraftwerk, the last gift from his brother and the DJ's last gift to the world he knew. He walks away from the site and starts walking back toward civilization. What he will find there is the Rorschach test Petit gives to his audience. What do you see in the ill-defined shapes of Robert's future? Has he rediscovered hope, or does the final shot of a train departing mean it's too late, any chance for humanity has already left the station?

UNTIL THE END OF THE WORLD - #1007

I couldn’t have picked a more fitting movie to watch at the close of 2019, nor could I have timed it better. It was an accident that U2 and the movie’s credits kicked in around 11:57 p.m. Had I not watched “The Song,” Uli M. Schueppel’s documentary on Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds’ contribution to the Until the End of the World soundtrack, before jumping from disc 1 to disc 2 or taken various other pauses, the timing would have been different. The song and the credits would not have concluded just as midnight ticked over to a new decade. Wim Wenders’ characters celebrate the move from 1999 to 2000; I move from 2019 to 2020.

And it’s not a real stretch to suggest we have as much existential angst now as Wenders imagined we would at the turn of the millennium. Released in 1991, Wenders took a gamble basing his artsy sci-fi road picture only eight years in the future. He was potentially building an expiration date into his own move. Yet, looking back, he accurately predicted the way technology would change and what would concern us, even if the look of his future was just a little more clunky than what turned out. Internet privacy, personal communicators, high definition, GPS, VR, digital preservatio, and digital escapism--all these things are at the fingertips and the forefront of the mind in Until the End of the World. To Wenders, technology was getting better, but also taking over in unforeseen ways.

It’s worth watching the director’s introduction to the movie to hear how long it took to get Until the End of the World onto the screen, how much longer it took to get to this version--final cut nearly twice the length as what initial audiences witnessed in theaters and on home video--and how the virtual world he shows then represented the cutting edge of technology. Amusingly, the filmmaker’s final product horrified the people who had loaned him their high-definition capabilities, as he used their inventions not to enhance and increase the clarity of images, but to tear them apart. But what better metaphor for technology’s propensity to overtake our humanity? It breaks everything down into pixels and data, abstracting the original, and the more removed it becomes from that initial experience, the more we seemingly want it.

Until the End of the World is a movie that has always fascinated me. I had listened to its now classic soundtrack album hundreds of times before I ever got to watch the movie itself. Elvis Costello, Nick Cave, Julee Cruise, R.E.M., Neneh Cherry, Depeche Mode--Wenders was in my zone. (Recently reissued on double-vinyl, I’m listening to it now, and the compilation still delights.) Eventually I caught the movie on VHS and was enthralled by its unwieldy, ambitious narrative. Even then, there were rumors of longer versions. The United States had a 158-minute version, but Europe got 20 minutes more, and Japan somehow got nearly an extra 100. Wenders’ original cut was anywhere between 12 hours and 20 depending on what you read, but his preferred version, as seen here, is 287 minutes--or nearly five hours. This longer version, or some semblance of it, has been promised on DVD since the early 2000s. Remember when Anchor Bay supposedly was going to release it? (Remember Anchor Bay?!)

That sounds like a lot of math, but it’s a classic cinema tragedy. From von Stroheim to Welles to Tati, there are persistent tales of directors whose mad visions were undercut by business concerns. These “lost” cuts become fabled, and it’s always a gamble of whether or not what was intended ends up being what was best. You could have Ridley Scott finally getting to finish Blade Runner properly or the rediscovery of Peter Bogdanovich’s At Long Last Love, or you could get Francis Ford Coppola’s endless tinkering of Apocalypse Now and Oliver Stone’s exhaustive mining of Alexander [review].

Wim Wenders is somewhere in the middle. Until the End of the World is not a masterpiece, but it’s an impressive look at a celluloid Icarus almost making it to the sun. It is at times almost too playful with tonality, while later maybe becoming too ponderous, too in love with its own ideas. Not everything works, and the narrative structure is perhaps more befitting a novel than a film. Criterion smartly splits Until the End of the World across two discs to go with what is a very natural intermission. Part 1 is the international chase and long-term courtship of Sam Farber (William Hurt, Broadcast News [review]) and Claire Tourneur (Solveig Dommartin, Wings of Desire [review]), a con man/scientist and a morally questionable party girl, respectively. It treks across Europe, Asia, and the U.S. before sending the characters toward their final destination, breaking for Part 2 just as they leave San Francisco for Australia.

Part 2 is more serious and heavy, trading the madcap physical chase in for a more intellectual pursuit. Sam has been on the run from the law. He is wanted for industrial espionage and the stolen technology he is carrying. When Claire finds him, he is traveling around the world recording messages from family members using special glasses that will record not just the video and audio, but the experience of seeing the event, the waves that connect the eye and the brain. The intent is to capture something that can be re-created in the brains of blind people, to let them “see” again. Sam’s father, Henry (Max Von Sydow, The Seventh Seal [review]), started the experiment, and had to go into hiding rather than let government or corporate interests take over. He’s built a lab in the Australian outback, and his number-one test subject is to be his wife and Sam’s mother, Edith (Jeanne Moreau, The Lovers [review]).

The Australian half is all about trying to make the tech work and to understand the consequences and implications. It’s a struggle of fathers and sons, but also men and women, and ultimately played out against the backdrop of total annihilation. This whole time, an Indian nuclear satellite has been falling from the sky, and there is a full expectation that it will signal the end of the planet. In this pocket of waiting, a community forms; yet, as they wait, there is a bigger question of what will happen if the prediction is false.

That’s a pretty simplistic breakdown of Until the End of the World. As suggested above, it’s kind of all over the place. Wenders’ approach changes almost with every locale switch, as the cast expands and he touches on different genres. Is this a caper picture? Is it romance? Is it a literary character study? Science fiction? Family drama? Political?

Of course, Until the End of the World is all of the above. Some of it clicks, some is hokey. The acting can be all over the place. Dommartin is an alluring cipher, defined more by the vision of her presented in the authorial narration than anything she does on screen. Sam Neill (My Brilliant Career) plays a writer who, as her former lover, is writing a book about Claire and, ostensibly, this movie, and he spends much of the running time waxing poetic about Claire’s elusive sensuality. Wenders’ supporting cast is like a tour of the Criterion Collection--from Ozu-stalwart Chishu Ryu to David Gulpilil from Walkabout [review]--but dotted along the globe, embracing different legendary personages wherever his crew lands and integrating them into the outline. The effect, though, can often be of miscommunication, as some of the performances feel lost in translation. Rudiger Volger’s private detective or Chick Ortega’s French hoodlum never seem comfortable working in English and often go too broad and cartoony for the rest of the movie. Would that more of the actors just spoke their own language and subtitles did the rest.

Weirdly, this mish-mash serves William Hurt well. His character arc involves a lot of strange turns as he adapts his personality to fit the moment. As an actor, Hurt is perfectly suited for this. His quirky persona is appropriately malleable, but it’s ultimately that quirk that maintains a thread through every scenario. As an actor, William Hurt was already as weird as the movie was intended to be.

That Until the End of the World takes on so much with such audacity leads me to believe that its detractors will forgive it as much as they dismiss it. You have to appreciate that Wim Wenders went for it as boldly as he did, and as an independent production no less. It’s full of hubris, and thus folly. For those like me that take it on and accept it, however, Until the End of the World can be as addictive and dreamy as Max Von Sydow’s futuristic machine, leading us through the dread of a changing world toward the hope of a better tomorrow. It’s colorful and crazy and deeply satisfying, and pretty much unlike anything else out there. And for that, to borrow from its own poetry: I will love it until the end of the world.

35 SHOTS OF RUM - CRITERION CHANNEL

This review was originally written for DVDTalk.com in 2010.

"We have everything here. Why go looking elsewhere?"

The latest film from Claire Denis, 35 Shots of Rum, trains its lens on the tenants of a French apartment building. At the center of the interpersonal drama is the old subway engineer Lionel (Alex Descas, Coffee and Cigarettes), who lives alone with his daughter Jo (Mati Diop) and who has an occasional affair with the upstairs neighbor, a taxi driver named Gabrielle (Nicole Dogué). Gabrielle pines for Lionel, but he is distant and untouchable, in charge of his own space and his emotions. It runs in the family. Another upstairs neighbor, Noé (Grégoire Colin, Nénette et Boni) has a thing for Jo, but she maybe sees a little too much of her dad in him. Ironically, the young drifter would settle down if maybe the girl would just give him the nod.

Of such simple stuff are great dramas often made, and 35 Shots of Rum observes these regular lives with an elegance and insight that ensures every small act assumes great importance. A chance encounter can alter everything, even if just for a day. A thoughtless action can break a heart, a minor gesture can invoke jealousy. The film is regularly compared to Ozu in the way it shows modern living and the schism between young and old, and that comparison couldn't be more justified. At the same time, Denis makes the genre (is Ozu a genre now?) her own by updating it. Her eye is a tad more cynical, and her character situation reversed. Rather than the older generation failing to understand the changes of the newer generation, it's Jo and Noé who are mourning lost values. Lionel may talk about stability, but outside of his homebase, he's a wanderer, tied to no one. For all his freedom, he is trapped.

Denis spent her early career working alongside Jim Jarmusch and Wim Wenders, and her films have a similar poetic laziness that draws more out of what is not said than what is. If character is action, then behavior is all that is needed to drive the plot. The way Gabrielle hangs around, nervously knocking at the door even after she has said her good-bye, or the way Lionel stares at another women across the room--these are profound moments, and in the case of the quiet man who forms the film's axis, silence is his greatest tool. As an audience, we are as compelled to watch Alex Descas as the people onscreen are compelled to watch Lionel. Some actors can draw the camera's attention just by their mere presence. Descas owns whatever space he inhabits. He doesn't have to claim it, it's just his. Yet, his most poignant moments come when he is vulnerable, playing the father realizing he could lose his daughter to another man.

Naturally, the actor is aided by the environment Claire Denis and cinematographer Agnès Godard (Golden Door) create for them. The action is staged in real locations, and the pair shoot from within the space provided. The look of 35 Shots of Rum is intimate and authentic, lending the same credibility to the performers and the story.

Keeping in line with the scale of the rest of the picture, the change that Denis and regular co-writer Jean-Pol Fargeau map out for Lionel is not a major one. Rather, it's learned and it's subtle. One of his colleagues, René (Julieth Mars Toussaint), retires early in the tale, presumably set free to enjoy life without the endless repetition of the subway routes. He doesn't go anywhere, though, he just hangs around, unsure of what to do with himself. The patterns he has established are all he knows, and he can't make a real change. His lack of purpose serves as a warning for Lionel: if you stay on the same track your entire life, you may never get to switch over to another. These are working-class versions of Ozu's salarymen: if you give your life to the job, what left do you have for yourself? The bigger life change is made by Jo, who assures her father that even though there might be other men in her life, they still will be father and daughter forever. She embraces the absolute even as she gets away from it. (Likewise, she reconnects with the past to wriggle out of its grasp.) To do otherwise is to become like Gabrielle, hung up on something she can never have.

The thirty-five shots of rum of the title is in reference to Lionel's special ritual, something he holds close and only indulges on the most special of occasions. When you consider the effects of alcohol, this too could be seen as an attempt to obliterate memories while also providing a balm that soothes one through a possibly unwanted transition. It's reckless, but so is life. We only see Lionel partake of this once, and he avoids explaining it until then, and so it's special when it happens. In a way, delving back into this drinking game suggests that maybe this is a case that the more things change, the more Lionel stays the same, and while a celebration is underway, he almost looks like he is at a wake rather than a party; at the same time, there is hope in his carriage. Acceptance. A cleansing. His head might be fuzzy in the morning--indeed, we've seen Lionel's hangovers--but once the cobwebs are clear, it's a whole new day.

BLU-REDO: BUENA VISTA SOCIAL CLUB - #866

What a difference a few years make. Or maybe it was just my mood. Most likely, though, it was expectations. I had heard a lot about Buena Vista Social Club, knew its reputation and its awards pedigree, so I am sure I expected to be wowed. When what I saw turned out to be much more subdued than the musical party I was expecting, I was maybe too quick to shrug it off. Thus, my original review, which was respectful but tepid.

Now seven years on, the Criterion Blu-ray in hand, and Wim Wenders’ 1999 documentary about the Cuban music scene is something I found to be absolutely enchanting. I was moved by the music, enthralled by the stories--it’s the same movie, but this time, I get it.

What Wenders had uncovered is not just incredible music, but tje incredible cast of characters that made it. Ibrahim Ferrer, Compay Segundo, Pío Leyva, Rubén   Gonz

ia; mso-hansi-font-family: Cambria;">ález, and the rest were of their time, a product of history, creating a beautiful reflection of the social change that swept across their homeland, but also a victim of the same movement. One gets the sense, particularly as you listen to their wistful anecdotes about the time when their club was all the rage, that Castro and his communism left them behind. They could have been something more, perhaps even international stars, but the doors to the outside world closed, and so eventually did the doors of the Buena Vista Social Club.

I particularly felt this when Ferrer would talk. He had the strange duality of an artist who hasn’t gotten his due--humbled by life, and yet confident in his talents. There is a subtle arrogance in knowing he deserved better.

And this is what makes the concert footage such a celebration. Filmed on trips to Germany and New York, the performances by these old timers have the energy of emotions being unleashed. At last, they are on a stage large enough for the songs; at last, they can sing them as intended.

Criterion’s new release does the film justice with a new transfer and a bevy of extras, including a vintage director’s commentary with Wenders. The image quality is not always up to current standards, but one gets the sense that the transfer is making the best of the source material. Some of the interview footage has the soft edge of early digital. It probably never looked that crisp. Which is fine, since the warm 5.1 surround mix is so good. Buena Vista Social Club is more about the sound than it is the image, and you’ll be pleased with this upgrade when you turn down the lights, turn up the volume, and let the Club work their magic.

This disc provided by the Criterion Collection for purposes of review.

BUENA VISTA SOCIAL CLUB - FILMSTRUCK/CRITERION CHANNEL

Originally posted because of the film's availability via the Criterion Channel on Filmstruck, you can now read about the April 2017 Criterion Blu-ray here. The review below was originally written for DVDTalk.com in 2010.

Buena Vista Social Club was quite the phenomenon back in the late 1990s. It started as a Grammy Award-winning album put together by Ry Cooder, and then it was followed by an Oscar-nominated documentary by German director Wim Wenders. The endeavor began with Cooder traveling to Cuba in search of the origins of some music he had heard on a tape some time prior. In trying to bring together different people, he discovered a large group of nearly forgotten musicians and singers, all of them well into old age, who represented the country's lost musical past. The film was made to spotlight the personalities behind the music, as well as to document a gathering of the participating musicians for a concert at Carnegie Hall. The resulting public embracing of this particular type of music is something I think only comparable to the similar celebration of T-Bone Burnett's archival soundtrack for O Brother, Where Art Thou?.

Wenders, shooting on video, put together Buena Vista Social Club using interlocking footage from a variety of parallel tracks. He followed Cooder around Cuba, peeking into the recording studio and breaking off to interview some of the musicians. He tours their neighborhoods, capturing on-the-street glimpses of modern Cuban life, laying the artists' stories on top of the images. Each of the interviewees talks about how they got into music, establishing a common history: just about every one of them picked up an instrument as youngsters, usually as part of some family tradition. This led them to embrace well-known songs, as well as collaborative efforts to create new ones. Wenders cuts together impromptu performances and a cappella versions with bits from the studio and full-band efforts on stage. Most of the performers also talk about their instruments and how some of them are specific to Cuba.

For me, hearing the old stories is more fascinating than the music itself. I liked the songs, but actually wish they had either been put more front and center or they were more constant. Songs softly mixed in with the interviews would have created a real rhythm for the entire movie. That's a small complaint, though. There are some great tales about the fighting techniques of blind piano players, busking on the street, or the men bragging about their virility and the number of children they have (at 90, Compay Segundo has five kids and claims to be working on his sixth). One of my favorite sequences was seeing Rubén González play piano for a bunch of young ballerinas. The joy of music really came clear watching the little girls break form and just move according to how the sounds made them feel. It's also neat seeing these old guys go to New York for the first time. They have a sense of wonder that is rare these days.

Sadly, many of the musicians in this film have died in the decade-plus since Buena Vista Social Club was released. Segundo, González, Pio Leyva, Manuel "Puntillita" Licea, Anga Diaz, Orlando "Cachaito" López, and Ibrahim Ferrer have all passed on. Buena Vista Social Club was the right document at the right time, a chance for these talented individuals to take one more shot at sharing their gift with others. The movie could take on a melancholy air as a result of this. There is even one shot where González is looking for the Statue of Liberty, and he nonchalantly points past the World Trade Center. So much has changed since that night at Carnegie Hall, it would be easy to get wistful. Yet, the fire of the music remains, and as Ibrahim's final song in the movie suggests, it can't be extinguished.

THE GREAT BEAUTY - #702

“You've changed. You're always thinking.”

It's ten minutes into The Great Beauty that Jep appears, almost as of he is but an incidental player in the narrative. Yet, it is his story, and his birthday party when he is revealed; the man is everything and nothing. As he is introduced, an aging television presenter long past her prime, the number 65 decorating her breasts, making her a grotesque combination of birthday cake and New Year's Baby, shouts, "Happy birthday, Jep! Happy birthday, Rome!"

Because Jep and his city are one and the same. The seasoned author, Jep Gambardella (played suavely and with great interior depth by Toni Servillo), is the chronicler of these tales, a watcher of all things Roman, his life and work and his society being both what he seeks and all that lends The Great Beauty its name. On Earth, he is Marcello Mastroianni from La dolce vita; as omniscient observer, he is the angels from Wings of Desire [review], careening through our collective existence, whispering in our ear. Half of those early 10 minutes are spent looking at the Roman dead while Paolo Sorrentino (Il Divo [review] establishes his visual style. The camera is continually moving. It pans, zooms, recedes, never lingering, building a kinetic memory board, as much Terrence Malick as Fellini and Wenders. The reverent journey gives way to a dance...literally. Both the gravesite and the conga are monuments to life and living, and with the author as narrator, only Jep has the ability to slow either. He first speaks to us smoking a cigarette while his celebrating guests form a chorus line on either side of him.

A writer's life is reflection, even as he is busy living it. A vapid actress at Jep's party says she is retiring to write her Proustian novel; an equally empty-headed actor pretends to know what she means. It's an ironic commentary. The novelist known for his books on memory is only remembered as such, just as Jep's legacy is largely built on his earliest accomplishments. He is more than happy to remain in that moment as a creator. It gives him all the more room to enjoy the current moment. He's not chasing the past so much as he's living in a continual present, time taking on the elastic Vonnegut quality of happening for him all at once.

But then, what happens when he stops moving? When the camera settles and the editor puts down his scissors? I suppose that's what the people around him wonder, and what they insist on provoking him to ask about himself. Where they fail, the milestone of 65 and the unexpected passing of his first love succeed. Jep’s book, revered as a masterwork of Italian literature, is called The Human Apparatus. It seems the fundamental question is, “How does this all work?” It’s a question Jep has never answered, as life is as fluid as the reasons he gives for never writing another novel.

And as an audience, we must be fluid with him. Impressions of both the main character and of Sorrentino’s movie change from episode to episode. Though Jep may see all of his history as a straight line, The Great Beauty’s narrative track doesn’t really follow one. Rome is full of random encounters. Everywhere Jep goes, he knows someone, be it a friend from three decades hence or an actress he remembers from her movies (a brief, lovely cameo by the luminous Fanny Ardant). It’s now that time and his own mortality are weighing on him that Jep is trying to put these moments together. He fears there are no answers, and even says as much in a rather brittle scene with a Catholic cardinal (Aldo Ralli). More than that, though, I would argue that what Jep really fears is missing anything.

A key scene is another where Jep assassinates a few characters. He’s an expert at eviscerating unworthy opponents. At one party, he dismisses a poet for having written the line “Up with life, down with reminiscence.” It’s is a line that offends him. What is life but the accumulated nostalgia? This is why his first love, the one that got away, is so important. Jep despises artists who demonstrate no insight, and people who stand for nothing. Yet, these people, these friends, labor at their pursuits, their empty politics and bad stageplays...and he just lives amongst their nothingness. His own comeuppance arrives later, when on one of his walks through a Roman relic, he stares into a metaphorical abyss to have a very real youth tell him, "You're nobody." Sorrentino frames the scene so as to isolate his man: we are down, looking up, the child ourselves, faceless even when our identity is revealed later, the lens panning down from the man, past the mother, to her daughter. There is much we can infer from these three levels, as really there are many levels to every shot in The Great Beauty. In one interpretation, we have a construct of age; in another, we have a religious trinity. As it is above, so it is below.

Two essential figures enter Jep’s mid-life to shake things up, and both bring death with them. First, there’s the one he doesn't take seriously, the troubled young man (Giorgio Pasotti) prone to dramatic gestures and quoting other writers, including Proust, about mortality. Jep’s dismissal of the boy’s difficulties and preoccupations proves to be tragic. By implication, the boy takes drastic measures in part because Jep ignored the pleas from the young man's mother (Pamela Villoresi) and gave neither of them the help they required. By the time of his funeral, when Jep tells the mother she can count on him, the hollowness of the words prove inescapable. Despite his insistence that attending the funeral is akin to performance, one where you must measure your own grief so as to not upstage the suffering family, true feeling overwhelms Jep here, and he breaks.

The second essential figure is also the only one to know Jep’s stoic intentions and thus how true his display of emotion is Ramona (Sabrina Ferilli), a fortysomething exotic dancer whom Jep has taken on as a lover. The daughter of one of his oldest friends, and a woman who has seen much herself and thus earned her cynicism and distrust, Ramona represents the individuality that the rest of Jep’s social circle could be seen as lacking. Of course, then, Jep’s affair with her is branded a "disappointment" by his old crowd. The somewhat younger woman is someone who has pursued her own path with no compulsion to explain; yet the cost of this is that, despite how she presents herself, she is fragile. Not in the “tough lady is really a wilting flower” sense, but her body just refuses to cope.

Still, in their time together, we get to see truly genuine affection between two people. Sorrentino creates a remarkable juxtaposition when the two leave a modern art party and are granted a clandestine late-night tour of one of Rome’s most beautiful art collections. At the soiree, ironically, a little girl who is being billed as a brilliant modern artist angrily throws paint against a giant canvas as the partygoers stand agog, cooing and gasping at what they see as a gimmick, failing to see that it’s their demands and their reactions that are causing the child to lash out in this way. Her act of creation is the only genuine thing in a contrived situation. Jep and Ramona leave this gathering and, once away from prying eyes, share their own true and private artistic experience. They are ushered into a secret pocket, a place of trust.

There is much in The Great Beauty that speaks to these alternating impulses, between honest expression and indulgent mollycoddling (and given Sorrentino’s extravagant style, he risks being labelled as the latter himself). Take, for instance, the two different photography projects that Jep is witness too. Both photographers take self-portraits, and both do so daily. The first is by a woman whom Jep has a one-night stand with, and she snaps the self-portraits in service to vanity, to study her fading beauty and fish for Facebook compliments. The second is done by a man carrying on a tradition begun when he is a child, a photo a day to remember, to observe, and to create and commemorate that continual timeline. Jep can’t even bring himself to look at the woman’s, but he is deeply moved by the man’s.

Which is indicative of where our author eventually swings. For all the disappointments and con artists, the moments of truth win out. “The future is a marvelous thing,” Jep tells the Marxist writer Stefania (Galatea Ranzi), sharing a warm reconciliation after a vicious falling out. This is not a man who has resigned himself to the past, but is still open to the miracles of life--including a genuine miracle awaiting him just a few scenes after.

“What lies beyond, lies beyond, it is not my concern,” Jep tells us as The Great Beauty concludes. It’s the beginning of the new story he has developed, the hypothetical second novel that will fill us in on all the wisdom and emotion he has accumulated in the forty years since The Human Apparatus. That novel ended with his protagonist giving up on love and thus life; fittingly, in the movie of his own existence, then, Jep Gambardella’s final word is “Yes.” The older man lays claim to what his younger self could not.

This disc was provided by the Criterion Collection for purposes of review.

PINA (Blu-Ray) - #644

Pina, the long-gestating personal project from German director Wim Wenders (Wings of Desire [review], Paris, Texas [review]), is a documentary/performance film that reverberates with emotion and wows with its technical wizardry. It is a time capsule, a museum piece, a preservation project, recording many of the famous modern dance pieces choreographed by Pina Bausch; yet, unlike most museum pieces, Pina is not stodgy or covered in dust. The only glass this vibrant recording belongs under is that of your television screen, and maybe the lenses of a pair of 3D glasses.

Pina was a film that had been on Wenders' docket for years, but footage of dance performances shot by other directors had convinced both him and Bausch that a standard set-up would not truly convey the power of Pina's artistry. She was against having too many cameras onstage, breaking the point of view, and changing the audience's perception. He was against setting up at the back of the auditorium and shooting the performance over the seats. Both approaches had been tried before, but with few successes. Carlos Saura took his tangos out of the performance space and entered the rehearsal area [review]; and, of course, there are the various films of Martha Graham at work [review]. But Wenders couldn't just repeat what they had done.

As the story goes, it was seeing U2's 3D concert film that changed everything. Released in 2007, U2 3D was the first example of the new technology in practice. I remember seeing it in IMAX and imagining I could jump from my seat and land on the drumkit and being tricked into thinking different elements in my peripheral vision were real, not projections. And I can barely stand U2. Wenders was so impressed by the stereoptic effects, he saw what Pina could be. The tech was still new and unwieldy, but in a couple of years, it would be there...

Unfortunately, he didn't have enough time. Pina Bausch died in 2009 without Wenders ever shooting a single frame with her. Rather than let this project die, however, he carried on, turning Pina into a tribute to his friend. The final film gathers her dance troupe, past and present, and has them perform some of her signature material. Some of the dances are set on the stage, some are taken out into real environments, both urban and rural. Amidst this, Wenders shoots portraits of the dancers, having them talk in voiceover about how Pina inspired them and what her work means in their lives.

The end product is far from your standard biography. It's less about the woman and more about the essence of her. It sticks to what is important, the dancing itself, rather than trying to string together significant events that may or may not have inspired it. The chosen pieces range from solo routines to larger casts. Some of the sets built for the filming are sparse, others are elaborate. All of them, after a fashion, are abstract dramas, illustrating the push and pull between men and women, personal growing pains, and the greater struggles of the human community.

I have now seen Pina twice: once in a theater, in 3D as Wim Wenders really intended, and this second time on Blu-Ray, in two dimensions. There are virtues to both (and this combo pack offers both options, though you'll need a 3D television to view that version). The 3D is immersive, creating a sense of space and movement that would not otherwise be possible. The closest you would come to that kind of experience would be to see the recital live and in person. At the same time, cinema allows you to get closer to the action, almost like you are in it but without disrupting the artists.

On the other hand, watching it at home, there were no pesky glasses, no adjusting to the multi-plane effects and the distractions that come with them. It's also easier to focus on the full performance. Even Wenders acknowledges this. You can actually see more in two-dimensions, because 3D evens out all the focal points, ironically making the image more flat even as it separates.

Either way, Pina is an effective movie. Wenders is working straight from the core on this one, driven by his gut as much as his intellect--which is also how the dancing translates. Pina Bausch's choreography takes our inner feelings and gives them external expression, turning the intangible into the physical. For most people reading this, we would likely have never been witness to any of the late dancer's work had this documentary never been made. And more would have been the pity. Pina is eye opening, mind expanding, and altogether beautiful.

For a complete rundown on the special features, read the full review at DVD Talk. Images here were taken from promotional materials and were not taken from the Blu-Ray under review.

BLU REDO - SHOCK CORRIDOR, THE NAKED KISS, and ROBINSON CRUSOE ON MARS

It's hard to believe I'm only been about three months since I got my Blu-Ray player. I definitely jumped in with both feet, even if I'm trying to be cautious about going overboard with upgrading my entire collection. I'm a boy on a budget, after all.

So, when I say that the new Criterion reissues of their Samuel Fuller titles, Shock Corridor and The Naked Kiss, are absolutely worth it, you can trust that this is something I mean wholeheartedly. Even if you aren't partaking of the new format yet, judging by the new transfers and all-around quality of the packaging, I am sure the standard DVD re-releases are also worth the cash. Being #18 and #19 in terms of spine numbers means both of these films were pretty early in the catalogue's existence. The original release date of the first barebones editions was 1998. Grand strides have been made in the art of film restoration, and you can see the journey in every cleaned-up frame. Both movies look astonishing. The pristine high-definition transfers are free of blemish, and they show the balanced black-and-white photography as never before. Given how much these flicks have been kicked around through the years, with various dubious DVD releases, it's wonderful to have definitive releases that get them exactly right.

I reviewed both of the Fuller movies not that long ago, prior to the announcement of these upgrades. It hasn't been quite enough time for me to develop profound new insights into the films, so you can read those reviews in the archives (Shock Corridor here, The Naked Kiss here). That doesn't mean there isn't plenty to talk about here. These releases are more than just new transfers, but a full overhaul. You can tell that right away when you see the spiffy new covers. Comics artist Daniel Clowes, perhaps best known in film circles as the author of the original Ghost World comics (he also wrote the screenplay for the Zwigoff adaptation, rumored to be a future Criterion addition) and as the illustrator who did the poster for Todd Solondz's Happiness, has contributed new designs to both of the Fuller films. His artwork extends beyond the covers, and into the interior booklets, the disc art, and even the nifty animated menus. Clowes gets Fuller's twisted poppiness to the letter.

Criterion has also added several bonus features that make these Blu-Rays worth the price of admission. I'm particularly excited to report that Shock Corridor now comes with the 1996 documentary The Typewriter, the Rifle and the Movie Camera, a 55-minute profile of Fuller directed by Adam Simon and featuring commentary by Tim Robbins, Martin Scorsese, Jim Jarmusch, and Quentin Tarantino. I first saw this documentary on IFC back in the 1990s, before I had seen most of Fuller's films, if in fact I had seen any. It gave me a long list of movies to seek out, some of which I am still looking for. (Hey, China Gate is on Netflix Instant!) Now that I've seen a good selection of them, it's all the more effective when Robbins and Tarantino go into Fuller's storage garage and sift through his memorabilia; now I actually know what it is they are finding!

More invigorating, though, is the footage of Fuller talking. What a raconteur this guy was! The title refers to his three careers: reporter, soldier (Fuller fought in WWII), and filmmaker. Each phase is covered, all brought to life by Fuller's vivid anecdotes. As Scorsese points out, Fuller tells stories the same way he makes films--there is no difference between what comes out of his mouth and what he puts on the screen. If you like how Sam makes movies, you'll love listening to him. (Side note: Too bad Criterion couldn't also resurrect Tigrero, the documentary about the motion picture that fell apart on Sam, and that ultimately provided some of the color footage for Shock Corridor.)

The bulk of the supplements on The Naked Kiss seize on the concept of Fuller as storyteller and run with it. Three different archival television programs are almost entirely single-camera jobs. Fuller is interviewed in all of them, but they are really more like monologues. The earliest is a 1967 episode of the French television show Cinéastes de notre temps, and it's nearly half-an-hour of vintage Sam. Flanked by the Eiffel Tower, the director lays out a lot of his technique and what excites him about motion pictures. One explanation of a particularly complicated set-up will have you rushing to your Pick-Up On South Street discs to see what he is talking about. [review]

Another French program is a short segment from Cinéma cinemas. Shot in 1987, it's simply Fuller going through a collection of famous photographs and talking about what he remembers. Some pre-date his movie career, including pictures from his wartime service, and others come from the publicity archives of many of his films. His life and history is also a good part of the 1983 episode of The South Bank Show, a BBC program that devoted an installment to the director. About half-an-hour of the full episode is excerpted here. Most of it, again, is Sam, but there is a small portion with Wim Wenders sharing his thoughts about Fuller.

Both BDs also have the original theatrical trailers, and each has nearly half-an-hour of a 2007 interview with actress Constance Towers, who was in both Shock Corridor and The Naked Kiss. She talks in-depth (nearly half an hour on each) about working with Sam and his balls-out production process, and the segments are specific to their particular disc. The interview on The Naked Kiss also includes her sharing more about her background. The story of the girl from Whitefish, Montana, making it in film is a classic Hollywood tale unto itself.

I'm a big Samuel Fuller fan, so these new releases would have likely been a must-have regardless, but seeing as how the Criterion Collection has gone all out in terms of improving them, it's a double-dip I have no residual qualms for indulging in.

Also out this month on Blu-Ray, and alas another film I covered last year, is Byron Haskin's Robinson Crusoe on Mars [original review]. Released in 1964 (the same year as The Naked Kiss), it's a Technicolor wonder--one that definitely seems more charming on second viewing. That could be down to the stunning presentation, I don't know. The original Criterion disc, released just over three years ago, was no slouch in the technical department, but the Blu-Ray shows just how dazzling a movie like this one can be in high-definition.

Though the unschooled might have previously had occasion to sniff at the special effects as being simplistic compared to the complicated pixel-by-pixel build-ups we get today, seeing Robinson Crusoe on Mars in this capacity would shut just about anyone up. The colors are remarkably vibrant, and the added clarity allows every tiny detail to be seen like never before. You'd have to be a hardcore cynic not to be awed by how incredibly complete Haskin's invented world is. The suits, the gadgets, the rockets, even the surface of the red planet--this is a craftsmen's delight. Even if, like me, you weren't immediately in love with Robinson Crusoe on Mars the first time around, the Blu-Ray warrants a second look.

For those wondering, the supplements on this edition are exactly the same as on the standard DVD, as is the packaging. The excellent Bill Sienkiewicz artwork is still intact. It's another thing all of these reissues have in common besides their original theatrical release dates: comic book illustrations. They are movies that capture the imagination, even if they do so in totally different, nearly opposite ways, and capturing the imagination is something a good comic artist knows a thing two about him or herself.

The Naked Kiss and Robinson Crusoe on Mars were provided by the Criterion Collection for purposes of review. Shock Corridor was reviewed in conjunction with DVD Talk, and you can read the full article here.