Rosemary's Baby (1968)

After viewing films from all over his career, I've come to the conclusion that, as interesting and engaging as his movies usually are, Roman Polanski is just flat-out inconsistent. Not only throughout his filmography but within each of the stories he chooses to place on the screen. There is a boisterousness to his actor's dialogue and a quick-turn happenstance to his pacing always present, which either pushes the material to greater, stylistic heights or forces it down into the bowels of contrivance.

Rosemary's Baby shares these qualities, but does it succeed or fail in their execution? The answer is that it rolls into a bit of both. The film is seen as one of the pinnacle classics of horror cinema, and to a point, I can totally understand why. Above all, it is a completely unique horror experience as far as the top-billed in the genre go. The film follows Rosemary, a yuppie looking to have a child with her husband, as they move into a strange apartment. The neighbors take a peculiar interest in Rosemary, supporting her desire for children and offering their bedside care to her. However, as her baby develops she finds herself subject to increasingly destructive treatment from those that supposedly look after her.

It's a premise that could easily be thrown into a tacky "look how weird and fucked up this is" aesthetic, but supernatural evil and grotesque shock take a far backseat to clinical mystery. Rosemary's slow unfolding of a plot against her and the child she's expecting seems like an after-thought to the social observations on manners and passive aggressive expectation in the film. Polanski creates his brand of tension by suffocating characters with guilt and repression, Rosemary taking the brunt of expectation as the mother-to-be.

The sinister forces at work are very pedestrian and slice-of-life, like the herbal drink that Rosemary's neighbor gives to her throughout her pregnancy. The drink seems to cause her great pain, makes her pale and sickly, and eventually she starts to suspect something is wrong. Everyone tells her to ride it out, ignoring her plight and calling her crazy for thinking otherwise. This "harm through hospitality" makes the disturbance in the film much more effective. It's an interesting critique of social politeness at all costs, showing the lengths some people will go to in order to maintain the status quo.

The elements of witchcraft and satanism are downplayed to the point of subconscious needling, nagging at your senses and only occasionally throwing it all in your face. There are only a handful of dream sequences that outwardly depict the anxieties of Rosemary, one being a hallucination induced by her being drugged. This particular nightmare sequence is the cream core of the film, as Rosemary is implicitly raped by her husband and first makes the realization that something is amiss with the neighbors in her apartment.

The sequence features intense chanting and brooding strings that hover over shadowy naked old people (including her neighbors) and Rosemary tied down to a satin bed. It's one of those unforgettable film moments where there is a full-bodied humor and grotesque subversion in equal portion. The nightmare could have been made in an aggressive, gross-out fashion, but Polanski keeps in all the awkward nuances. The image of the old people standing around her bed, watching and waiting, is burned in your mind, not because it got scared into you, but because you genuinely didn't know what the fuck to think of it.

Mia Farrow's portrayal of Rosemary unfortunately has remnants of the old acting school elocution. I could see a genuine performance wanting to crawl out of her, but she remains fastened to the overly proper mannerisms and dialogue articulation found in Hollywood films of the '40s, '50s and early '60s. The time context becomes less of an adequate excuse considering that the movie was released in 1968, from a filmmaker known for stylistically alternative acting direction, and the counterculture film movement being in full swing. However, Ruth Gordon as the nosy, overbearing neighbor Minnie, was pitch perfect. It's clear she's supposed to be a caricature of a New York Jew, but she plays it with a nice tussle between ostentatious clown, dry villain and stern nurse.

Like with many of Polanski's films, Rosemary's Baby goes on for slightly too long (even though the ending is well done), attempting to throw a few extra twists in for good measure. An example is the portion where Rosemary seeks consolation in her first OBGYN, after being subjected to malpractice from another doctor that's in collaboration with the apartment neighbors. She finds out that this first doctor is ALSO under the sway of the neighbors, thwarting her plans to escape their clutches. It's a section that is far-fetched and unnecessary, it doesn't give any new context to what's going on in the story, it doesn't heighten the tension or provide a stylistic eccentricity worth watching. It's just extra fat. I couldn't help but feel that if the film was 20 minutes shorter,  it could have been more succinct and powerful. The tension could still be built adequately but there would be no room for flat twists that just turn into posturing.

So, on the positive side, Rosemary's Baby is a good-looking horror film that doesn't play by any of the rules setup in the genre. I've always wished more horror movies explored the slow, passive aggressive crawl of disturbance over shock and slash thrills, but the truth is the former is much harder to pull off than the latter. On the negative side, Polanski's penchant for dragging out his narratives and Farrow's fluffy, somewhat artificial performance hold the film back from any true greatness in my mind. It's a film that is absolutely worth watching, but one that needs to be taken with grain of salt.





 

Raging Bull (1980)

I'm like the donkey with the lamest leg, the largest plough and the harshest farmer when it comes to the chronology in which I should have seen Martin Scorsese's Raging Bull. Scorsese was one of the first directors (along with Stanley Kubrick and David Fincher) that I embraced as a paragon of artful cinema, back in my heady (or just uneventful) days of late high school. I got a huge rush from seeing Taxi Driver and Mean Streets around that time, my burgeoning curiosity for movies intersecting kindly with all of the stark violence, urban unrest and vibrant culture on display. After a while I was on to exploring other things, and Scorsese took a very intermittent role within my moviedom. I saw Gangs of New York junior year in high school, Goodfellas, Casio, and Bringing Out the Dead splashed into my view during a brief stint in college, saw The Departed in theaters a year later, The Aviator came three or so years later, then I finally rounded things off with a viewing of Shutter Island, a full year after it was released.

Raging Bull always seemed to elude my interest. I knew it was considered one of the director's masterpieces - a slogan hacked and coughed and fucked to death by every critic, film student and movie fan in the world. It was one of those things where I was simultaneously curious about the film's true quality, but also extremely put off by the impenetrable armor that so many people had placed upon it. So I dallied, I delayed, I forgot, I remembered and then forgot again. After enough time passed, effectively spreading me away from the film's reputation (in my mind's eye, anyway), I finally beckoned Netflix to send it to me.

Cast in an iron mold of gorgeous black and white cinematography, Raging Bull tells the story (based on actual events) of Jake LaMotta, a maverick boxer barreling down the middleweight regional circuit, undefeated and unchallenged. The man even stands toe to toe with boxing giant, Sugar Ray Robinson, and decimates him on more than one occasion. The film tracks La Motta's sharp rise to near-stardom, then his hard, slow tumble back into obscurity.

When you get down to brass tacks, Raging Bull is fundamentally structured like a million other cautionary biopics of stalwarts that buckle in the face of greatness. The film follows mid-early career LaMotta from his roots in a dysfunctional Bronx apartment where he's managed by his brother Joey, to a heated romance with neighborhood girl, Vicki, rising prestige in the ring, marriage, house, kids, etc, etc. It's not until Jake decides to take a dive in order to garner favor from his neighborhood sponsors that things turn sour, both in the ring and in his personal life.

LaMotta is portrayed by Robert De Niro, who injects a shit-storm of impotent rage and paranoia into a man never quite satisfied with his station in life or the intentions of those around him. It's a performance that helped to cement the legendary reputation (and his subsequent typecasting) of the actor. As far as how it actually plays off within the context of the film?  Honestly, there wasn't anything special about De Niro as young to early-middle age LaMotta. Not that De Niro is bad, but it's an identical performance from him, seen many times, both before and after Raging Bull. It's the same mumble-mouth wiseguy cadences and desperate moans that are well-worn in his little corner of pop culture.

When I finally landed upon the "classic" scene of him accusing his brother of cheating with Jake's wife, Jake uttering the gold-plated words, "I heard things" and "you fuck my wife?", it was a let-down of neutral proportions. The scene did it's job in shifting the drama along, but it wasn't nearly as interesting or iconic as all the parodies and stupid fan impressions would have you believe.

I'll give it to De Niro that he does do a fine job as elder Jake LaMotta - fat, washed up, life falling apart - but still desperately dry-humping the limelight, this time in the form of a lizard-haired stand-up comedian. The sense of transformation is truly palpable in the later scenes of the film, particularly where he performs at a shitty dive bar, heckled, scraping the bottom, but retaining a kind of smirking pride for the irony of his life. Of course, even this section of the film is dogged by typical beats of a biopic, particularly when LaMotta's wife drives up to Jake at his club and tells him she's leaving for good with the kids. In the prior scene with Vickie, the couple appears to be at peace in their idyllic Miami home, after an eruption of violence and anger years before, but then suddenly she's leaving him within two subsequent sequences? It feels like a lazy shoehorn, even with the undercurrent of lingering dysfunction.

The romance between LaMotta and Vickie is actually the best framed thing in the movie, at least, for the first section of it. The long, understated shots of the couple getting down to business for the first time and Jake's dominating, self-inflicted tease of her body before a fight are great stones in the river,slowing things to satisfying intimacy, if even for just a little bit.

The two things that struck me as definitively awesome were the boxing sequences and the film's music score. As the camera tracks down to the ring, a shrill set of strings wince off a melancholy that never saps up the film. Instead, it resonates with a graceful sadness. The music sometimes even cascades with the mish-mash of trick photography (not to mention the stellar sound design) that Scorsese employs for Raging Bull's boxing matches. Mixing in slow-motion, fast-motion, bulb-bursts and heavy smoke machines, the fights take on an ethereal quality, detached from the film, floating above it. These sequences are made all the sharper by De Niro's fight choreography, which punctuates and flows quite nicely to the film's dream aesthetic.

Distinctive fight sequences can't save a movie of this caliber, however. Raging Bull has always been billed as a dramatic juggernaut, and a lot of the drama feels like Oscar-blowjob. Mountainous tantrums, tearful breakdowns, a lukewarm brother relationship (that should have been explored further), marginally important supporting female roles and a moral arch that was tired long before this film was made. Sounds like Academy fodder if I've ever seen any. Scorsese injects enough of his trademark non-sequitur moments and the fight photography is absolutely worth watching, but ultimately Raging Bull is tepid. An alright film, with a handful of good ideas scattered throughout.

Drive (2011)

After hearing so many people suck the dick of Drive for about year, I finally decided to hunker down and watch it. The main thing that put me off for so long was the inclusion of Ryan Gosling, an actor who's fame and fan adoration still eludes my sense of sanity. All he has to do is be in a movie, standing around looking tough or sad, and suddenly he is god's floral embellished gift to earth. Situations like this crop up every once in a while in pop culture which really make me wonder about the populace, and, if I'm an unwitting monster or alien or in a bad coma dream that I can't wake up from. I don't know how else to fathom so many people  genuinely loving mediocre presence. Or worse, fooling themselves into loving it, because there he is right now and he looks cool and he's serious and that jacket he wears makes the movie.

On the other hand, Drive is directed by Nicolas Winding Refn, who made Bronson (an interesting biopic that starred Tom Hardy), and it includes actors of mild respectability like Bryan Cranston, Ron Pearlman and Albert Brooks. However, the second red flag (after Gosla-thon) shot up as I learned the synopsis. The story of a nameless, brooding stunt driver falling for his neighbor and getting tangled up in a local mob deal, is definitively simplistic. It's a premise where the dialogue, the characters and the pacing need to be incredibly strong in order to pull off something truly memorable. The trouble with a lot of these hyper-genre movies that call transparent attention to the types of films they are referencing, is that they often only echo the shallowest aspects of those previous films. It's as if the idea of making a good movie is thrown out in favor of people can getting their nostalgia on.

It's not to say Drive is overtly one of these hyper-genre films, it is less so than movies like Machete, Hobo with a Shot Gun, Faster, The Expendables, Not Another Teen Movie, Epic Movie, etc, but there is a specter of hard-lit, gratuitous '80s violence running throughout. Not to mention the sleazy neon synths of the pop songs that drop in now and again.

I'll admit that the beginning of Drive has hints of promise in it. Gosling isn't talking much (what he does best), his moonlight getaway is set up amidst a flashy montage and punctuated synth bass notes, the world is encased in a dreamy green-white cinematography. But even then, I could spot holes that would be torn wider and wider as the film progressed. Save for a few specific scenes, the movie is edited like any other big budget Hollywood film, with all the unnecessary jump cuts, spoon-fed character/location references and awkward leaps in time that you can chew on.

After a while, Drive starts folding in on itself, one plotline and turn-of-dialogue at a time. Whether it's the short-lived ring of the cautionary words that Albert Brooks' homicidal mob boss, Bernie Rose, gives to Gosling (mob involvement = lifetime of danger), or the anti-climatic twist/swift resolution of the driver taking revenge over a rigged pawnshop robbery, it's easy to tell that any possible narrative establishment or long-form tension has been sucked away. The "smile our way into love" interaction between Gosling and Carrie Mulligan's Irene is another example of this, the two characters literally smiling sheepishly at each other - when they meet, when the driver plays with Irene's kid, when they see each other in the hall, when Irene's husband comes home - all the way into a hyperbolic make-out scene that absolutely was supposed to be super cool and stylish, but comes off overblown and irrelevant, because who really gives a shit about this cardboard cutout of a relationship?

The movie also has a major non-sequitur that seems to hint at either extra footage being cut or the ritualistic force-fuck of an attempted cool-kid moment that was completely unnecessary. The driver retrieves a human face mold from the set he works on, implying that he is to wear it in some functional situation where he does not want to be recognized. Right? Wrong. He dons the mask in front of an Italian restaurant owned by one of the mob bosses where no one sees him, and, instead of going and pulling some trick to reach the boss, the driver waits for him to come out, then follows him faraway to his lonely demise. So, the only explanation for this man-mask is that the director wanted to drum up the idiosyncratic-scene quotient.

Even Drive's depiction of violence is nothing to guffaw at, despite the "blown-away" reaction that I've heard from so many people. The few moments of ultra-gore, like the shotgun blast to the head and the kitchen knife to the throat, are satisfying to watch for the virtue of their technical execution, but not for punctuation on the context of the story. These moments of violence come off as useless fantasy rather than weighted action, which actually hollows out the film more than it lifts it up. On top of everything, each sequence of blood and guts is edited awkwardly, pulling between a curtailed dignity (by not showing it for long) and a "money shot" moment, where you see everything, all at once.

Ultimately, the only thing I came away feeling satisfied and endeared by with Drive, was Cliff Martinez's awesome film score. His use of swirling ambient chords pushes the movie into an ephemeral space that it doesn't necessarily deserve. It's a cloak of gorgeous affection that would have served a well-crafted drama or romance, but here it just conjures up the phantoms of emotion and nothing else. It is, however, a nice relief from the contrived lyrics of the chosen pop songs, like College's "A Real Hero", which is set to the melodramatic backwash of the driver being a sensitive cool-dad to Irene's son. As the girl on the track sings "a hero, a real human being", I just about want to hang myself in the closet.

So Drive is inconsistent and nothing at all special. It can't seem to decide between wanting to be cult cool or straight-up serious, something that foils its impact throughout. Gosling certainly doesn't save the film. All his puppy dog stares and monotone dialogue show exactly what he can do as an actor. I'm sure it was a style choice on the part of Winding Refn, but the truth is, that's not a thrown performance for Gosling, that IS how he acts. Also, it's a tough guy movie where all two of the women characters are irrelevant and always outside the world of heavy things, of violent things and of crime things. Anyway you slice it, aside from the great original score, the film is a monster of style that slowly devours all substance. Of course, this particular monster thinks that if he devours enough, he'll find meaning beneath all the meat.

Jubilee (1978)

A lot of movies have been made about punk rock and most of them are terrible. The main reason for this is because punk - ever since its rise in the mid to late '70s - has been perhaps the most bastardized sub-culture on the face of the planet. Just look around today to see what I mean. Punk has infiltrated every orifice of pop culture, from baby clothes to fashion lines to faux-attitude t-shirts to a common acceptance of piercing and tattoos (metal helped with that as well) to a wonky sea-saw of derivative music (emo, screamo, grunge, pop punk, Oi!, Celtic punk, hardcore, etc, etc). Consequently, finding a meaningful connection and an accurate depiction of what punk originally encompassed is like looking for a very tiny needle in a gargantuan, burning haystack.

Most punk movies try to simultaneously glorify and reproach the wild-crust lifestyle of those who inhabit the culture. They flaunt the music, the clothes, the snarling attitude - but these films never usually penetrate beyond surface level grime or melodramatic caution. They're stuck in a limbo of cool, the culture is merely an eccentricity to sell to an audience that has a similar ignorance about punk. It's a blind leading the blind situation, and the cliff is usually not far away.  

Jubilee, however, struts about in a very different fashion. Presiding throughout the film is a deep embrace of know-it-all anarchy - a volatile, funny and effortlessly wise abandon that puts you in a strangely satisfying place. In some ways you could imagine Jubilee as an extravagant musical turned inside out. There are no breaks into song, but there are raw, impromptu musical performances. There is no grandiose story arch or moral backbone, but there is a surreal, disjointed adventure. There is no contrived cast of never-grew-up high school thesps, but the film is made up of very vivid, hilarious and obnoxious characters.

The film isn't so much a narrative as it is an insightful poem on the state of England in the late '70s. Unfurling in abstract stanzas, it jumps between Queen Elizabeth I, who wishes to observe the future of England, and a group of wayward "future" punks that live in a run-down, vandalized loft that always seems to be doused in a sea of orange, yellow and green. Connecting them is a supernatural entity (a god-man with black eyes and a leotard) that spouts off fragments of a cryptic eulogy for a Britain that already seems to have endured an apocalypse - namely, World War II.

The most striking aspect of Jubilee is the depiction of the post-war industrial landscape of England. Director Derek Jarman didn't have to dress up elaborate sets or fly off to some far-flung location in order to capture the post-civilization vibe he was looking for. He was living it everyday in the England of the '70s. Every where the camera travels there seems to be a pile of old factories, rusted fences, decrepit brick houses, abandoned storefronts and shabby loft spaces. It's surreal to look at the state of the country - it looks more like the ghettos of Blade Runner than an actual place within our time span.

But the scuzzy, broken-down landscape is populated with a wide assortment of characters, all very much alive and always looking for a bit of fun. The main group is made up of two pudgy girls in heavy pink eyeliner and colorful hair, Amyl Nitrate and Mad, two brothers with a bent for incest, a slut aptly named Crabs, a young guy, known as "the Kid", looking to make it big as a musician (played by a despondent Adam Ant) and a mute cross-dresser simply called "Chaos". They're all lead by Bod, a waifish upstart that stirs up the trouble (namely murder and dance orgies) that the group so desperately needs to cure their boredom. The actress who plays Bod, Jenny Runacre, also plays Queen Elizabeth I, adding a playful little spice of surrealism into the film's dynamic.

It's authentic acting all around, as most of the cast was actually engaged with the punk movement in some shape or form at the time. The girl who plays Amyl, mysteriously listed as "Jordan" on IMDB, particularly stands out with her precocious monologues on the woeful history of England, how art always begins as something that is alive and is then subsidized for the masses. She also reflects on art's inevitable destruction through a lack of dreams: "In those days, desires weren't allowed to become reality. So fantasy was substituted for them - films, books, pictures. They called it 'art'. But when your desires become reality, you don't need fantasy any longer, or art." There's also a particularly vivid scene in the film where Amyl performs in a theater, donning a viking outfit and lip-syncing to a dub-infused punk song. She attempts to make her movements look choreographed and even austere, but the masquerade is easily dismissed by her occasional grins and clumsy missteps. It's Jubilee in a nutshell - posturing uppity philosophy one moment, then shitting all over it the next.

This theater scene also introduces the most magnetic and bizarre character in the film, Borgia Ginz, played by a gleefully demented Jack Birkett. Swiveling his bug-eyes to and fro, baring his huge set of game show host teeth and cackling wildly like a lunatic, Ginz is the exaggerated media mogul that all the young punks who dream of recognition come to rely on. Ginz is perhaps the most perceptive of all the characters in Jubilee and becomes an embodiment of the film's primary tenants - self-destruction, chaos and manipulation.

"Without progress life would be unbearable. Progress has taken the place of Heaven...It's like pornography; better than the real thing," he says during one of his monologues, echoing the sentiment that such a volatile movement as punk was destined to burn out quickly, and all that's left is the fantasy of it. At another point Ginz exclaims, "This is the generation who grew up, and forgot to lead their lives", a very haunting statement that spells out the inevitable disillusionment that comes with an absence of responsibility.

That's the most powerful thing I took away from this inverted-glam, punk rock odyssey. Anarchy and indolence don't offer any answers - in fact, they never intended to. They are (or were), however, powerful tools of transportation, the end result just needs (or needed) to be made up of something else entirely. I think Jarman saw this with extreme clarity, knowing that one day, sooner rather than later, the party would be over. The punks would have to actually make good on their irreverent disassociation with society and shape England for the future. Unfortunately, the movement was dead before most people realized it - killed again and again by an implosive nature, mass commercialization and humorous dismissal from the general public.

But the archetype of punk persists and finds its way, albeit minutely, into our daily lives. Jubilee may sound the death-knell for a specific subculture and generation in the '70s, but punk encapsulates very timeless qualities of rebellion, rejection and strength. Long ago ceasing to be an ideology, punk has remained, foremost, a -feeling-. While it is certainly a word detached from its original significance, it is still valid when the right kind of mind is pushing it out of their lips and putting it into action.

Persona (1966)

Movies sometimes have a funny way of slipping profound context into your life, even if they echo their message from decades gone by. There is definitely a sense of happenstance to it, as the time in your life and the way you view a film vary greatly, but when the planets align just right and all the traffic lights are green, a revelatory experience waits to be unleashed in movies. It's the testament of great art in action - an audience the filmmakers never even dreamed about now enjoy their work on entirely new levels. These movies have become disembodied entities - always with the signatures of their creators - but now more of an ephemeral reincarnation, more of a personally refreshed experience.

I felt this way when I watched Ingmar Bergman's Persona for the second time in my life, just about a week ago. The film is primarily a disheartening free-fall into existential identity theft, but it carries with it many social observations on the cowardly, deceptive nature of how people interact with each other. Bergman highlights the moral dilemma of acting selfishly (and the act of never bothering to justify it), with the ultimate form of consequence - total theft of the self. Sure, a few of the technical stingers and awkward transitions don't quite hold up, but the hokey qualities of the film are vastly outweighed by a clear articulation of the pitfalls found in social complacency.

With brief, abstract bookends of flashing imagery (from spiders to old cartoons to dicks), Persona tells the story of an actress, Elisabet Volger, who chooses to be mute, and her small-minded but dedicated nurse, Sister Alma. Elisabet forces herself into silence after a stage performance, where she was unable to speak, making her feel humiliated and lost. Tasked with watching over her, Alma finds Elisbet's silence to be unnerving. Despite her reservations, Alma forges ahead and the two are sent to a seaside summer retreat for Elisabet's recuperation. Alma quickly learns that her paitent is not actually looking to recover, but to appropriate her personality as if she were studying for a role in a play or film.

Persona is a film that slithers under the skin, right into the dark recesses of the subconscious. You can tell from the sheer animosity of Elisabet and Alma that Bergman desperately had a bone to pick with the hypocritical machinations of society. Elisabet is a kind of moral abyss, choosing to remove herself altogether from the masquerades that people put on daily. Liv Ullman plays the actress with an eerily satisfying glibness, her devilish smirks and glassy-eyed desperation speak volumes above Alma's incessant barrage of complaints, desires and admissions. Bibi Andersson casts Alma in numerous masks - politeness, compassion, devotion - but quickly devolves her into a toxic mass of deceit and resentment.

In my favorite scene of the film, Alma is compensating for Elisabet's lack of speaking, by telling the actress some of her deepest held secrets. As she reclines awkwardly in a chair, Alma discusses an infidelity she never acknowledged to her soon-to-be husband. She explains that she was at the beach with a friend, laying naked in the sun, when she noticed two teenage boys spying on them nearby. Alma describes all the intimate details of the encounter, how her friend beckons the boys over and they all engage in wild, frivolous sex. Alma admits to Elisabet that it was the most pleasure she had ever known, that she had never been truly satisfied by her fiancee.

Alma's admission of deceit is made all the more palpable by the heavy silence in the beach house - the hypnotic swish of the sea in the background driving it all straight to the gut. Her confession is a disturbing realization of human impulse and weakness. There is no entity there to chide her or wrap her back around to her morals, which gradually deteriorates her mental state. In a sense, this scene exemplifies the brutal dynamic of Persona. There's a presiding feeling in the film that nothing can be done to turn people into creatures of sincerity and truth, and so Bergman eagerly opens up the path to hell.

The way Bergman applies layers of light and shadow in such a simple space as a beach house is pretty astounding when you think about it. The brooding visual aesthetic expertly reflects the conflict between the two women, as well as Alma's gradual synthesis into Elisabet's repertoire. From the sun-bleached stones of the beach, to the dense darkness barely penetrated by lamps or sunlight within the house, the location is an abstract resemblance of each woman's state of mind.

There's a scene where Elisabet quietly emerges from a bright hallway into a dark room where Alma is sleeping, which is just so powerful to watch. Elisabet takes a moment to look over Alma, then moves on, but Alma wakes up and the two gaze at each other longingly. It's just one instance (aside from the blatant scenes of Elisabet necking Alma) that points to not only an emotional attraction, but a sexual attraction between the women. It's an interesting aspect considering the issues of women's liberation at the time, but I think the sexual energy points more to the vanity of Elisabet, she's more in love (and lust) with the idea of taking on the role of this damaged, struggling woman that looks after her.

Persona also plays with time and pacing, adding a hefty helping of disorientation to the film. It starts off as a fairly straight-forward narrative, but a little while after the two women reach the beach house, scenes begin to meld into each other and break off abruptly, as well as disintegrate into abstract transitions and rear-projection tricks. Bergman plays with the idea of fusing scenes with vastly different tones and lighting aesthetics - when Alma gets upset at Elisabet in the kitchen, runs off to her room, and then the actress later comforts her - to give off a bizarre progression of time. Then there are scenes, such as Alma's breaking point in the middle of film (before she tries to get Elisabet to cut her foot on the glass), which cut-off without warning. Such uneven pacing might have caused most films to fold in on themselves, but you can tell Bergman took his time in making sure the editing reflected the mood and message he was trying to convey.

I would say the doctor at the beginning of Persona sums the film up with such a severe articulation, indicative of Bergman's (usually) fantastic writing: "I understand, all right. The hopeless dream of being - not seeming, but being. At every waking moment, alert. The gulf between what you are with others and what you are alone. The vertigo and the constant hunger to be exposed, to be seen through, perhaps even wiped out. Every inflection and every gesture a lie, every smile a grimace...you can shut yourself in. Then you needn't play any parts or make wrong gestures. Or so you thought. But reality is diabolical. Your hiding place isn't watertight. Life trickles in from the outside, and you're forced to react. No one asks if it is true or false, if you're genuine or just a sham".

Those sharp, painfully honest words expose the social conundrum of living selfishly, while desiring to appear altruistic, successful, stable, smart, appreciated, etc. It's a ripped band-aid off the pretense that so many people employ in their routine lives - the idea that even honesty and proactive self-awareness have been relegated to convenient social masks. It's an observation that is perhaps slightly too cynical, but it comes from a genuine place all the same. With Persona, I don't think Bergman is asking, "why are you so selfish?". I think he's really asking, "why bother pretending?".   

La Collectionneuse (1967)

With La Collectionneuse, I've now seen five of Eric Rohmer's six moral tales, which include the likes of My Night at Maud's, Chloe in the Afternoon and Claire's Knee. I've been consistently impressed by the director's ability to rattle off insightful dialogue on a whim and to craft well-rounded male protagonists. In each of his moral tales, Rohmer cast's his leading men as scientists studying the essence of women. They attempt to dissect, circumvent, adore and classify the fairer sex in order to explain their hypothesis' on love, lust, romance and obsession.

La Collectionneuse follows this same path, sketching out the story of a handsome art dealer named Adrien. Tired of being consumed by his job and at odds with his girlfriend, he takes a vacation at his friend's villa on the Mediterranean Sea. Adrien plans on doing absolutely nothing while at the villa - he desires only to take in the beauty of the area, go for morning swims and to sleep undisturbed. When he learns from his friend Daniel that a young woman, Haydee, is coming to stay with them, his temporary peace is ended. It isn't long after that a series of events push Adrien to become increasingly enamored with the girl.

The French Riviera is beautiful in and of itself, so the film was predestined to be an idyllic visual distraction. Still, the slight yellow-white tinge of the cinematography gives La Collectionneuse a very nostalgic "home movies" feel, without the grit and grain of low-quality consumer cameras. It's the same oven-baked visual aesthetic that appears in Rohmer's equally gorgeous film, Claire's Knee, which is set in a similar coastal villa. The look of the film gives off a warmth that settles you in for an evening of lazily profound reflection.

Adrien and Haydee's interactions provide a well-conceived play on relationship dynamics. With Adrien, you get to hear all of his inner-thoughts, his plans and designs, his guesswork about Haydee's ultimate intentions. Haydee, on the other hand, is an enigma like the rest of the female characters in Rohmer's moral tales. I feel Rohmer avoids meta-insight for his women as a sort of artistic expression of their unknowable intrigue. The true insight of his films comes from the perception that you can't ever truly know someone, no matter how well or how long you've been acquainted with them.

Adrien finds his interest in Haydee almost deplorable. He doesn't want to be lured in by her loose, reckless lifestyle, yet, he finds himself inextricably drawn to her all the same. Throughout the first section of the film, Adrien actively berates Haydee for her actions, attempting to get her to react and pursue him. In one scene, Adrien just flat out asks Haydee what the point of slutting it up is, when no meaningful relationships can come of it. Haydee replies, almost bashfully, that she's searching for something, but she doesn't know what it is. She admits that she wants a deeper connection with a man, but that she feels she always screws something up before it reaches that point.

It's this kind of earnestness that makes Rohmer's films so satisfying to watch. You can tell the man has labored long and hard in his own life on the subjects of women and romance, and he is baring all of it - his mistakes and his triumphs - on screen for the world to see. Rohmer loves women, regardless of any inconsistent or contrary behavior they might fall back on. He realizes that when feeling uncertain or being dragged around by impulses (instead of actively riding around on them), the women in his life would act conversely in order to guard themselves from men with the same types of impulses.

Since forthrightness between the genders is gravely disproportionate (due in part to biology and sociological upbringing), constant disingenuous validation from men only reinforces upon "revolving door" women the desire to be selfish, to skirt accountability, to forgo decency. Haydee encapsulates this kind of woman perfectly. Rohmer casts her as a naive waif, sloshing blindly through a bog of insincere men, female liberation and self-doubt. She is both assured in her adventurous lifestyle and also deeply insecure about the type of man she desires to be with.

Adrien merely bumbles his way into Haydee's life - at times successfully obtaining her attention and other times scorning her inadvertently. All of his plans and predictions about her intentions are made irrelevant by the girl's killer combo of low-esteem and a whimsical nature. Not to mention that, technically, Adrien is volunteering infidelity against his far-flung girlfriend. This works as a sort of moral backbone of the film, exposing Adrien as inherently hypocritical and undercutting any good intentions he may have for Haydee.  

Rohmer also weaves general, but very perceptive observations on social acceptance into the film, using them as venn-diagrams for the behavior of young men and women. At one point, a man speaking to Daniel remarks that the Victorian era gave rise to the idea of people creating an image of "distance" around themselves. This superficial "distance" was manifest to create the intrigue and adoration that these people so desired from others. This resonated with me quite a bit, as especially today, people utilize this passive aggressive behavior in all facets of their social life, not just romantic. To me, it's a dishonest intrigue, very selfish in nature, that does not lend itself to healthy, fulfilling relationships. Since it comes from a deeply selfish and shallow desire to be loved but to not necessarily return it in kind, Rohmer emphasizes the idea that the more self-involved people are the less happy they become, but the surface gratification is nice all the same.

La Collectionneuse may be just a bit long-winded and a touch sloppy in it's technical execution, but it doesn't detract from the meaty love philosophy that resides within. Adrien and Haydee's on and off fluctuations provide a satisfying uncertainty, where confidence is undone by recklessness, naivety foiled by intelligence and everyone is at the mercy of everyone else. You know, like reality.

Prometheus (2012)

I'm pretty sour on most of what Hollywood has produced in the past decade, including what's being made these days. The sense of plot-plowing, lazy archetypes and the marketing double cheeseburger (ala The Deathly Hollows, Part 2) have completely choked any true meaning (which, in this case, is thrill and spectacle) out of blockbuster films. It's just about the transient gratification and the social hype - studios will always scramble for new ways to pander and squeeze every last dollar out of consumers.

Despite this, I still find bits of ingenuity, slivers of good storytelling, dashes of satisfying action, remnants of full-fledged character development and smatterings of well-choreographed special effects within the Hollywood spectrum. These are elements that come no where near the territory of "memorable" but they do present an intriguing potential all the same. With Ridley Scott's Prometheus, there are murmurs of promise, but the uneven pacing, inconsistent acting and an ultimate desire to impress a wide-ranging audience seals the film's fate as a gun that goes off into your toes instead of your face.

The film is a precursor to the Alien series, taking place well before the events of the 1979 classic, before the eventual evolution of the xenomorphs to their iconic movie-culture image. It revolves around the crew of an exploratory space vessel, Prometheus, and more specially, the lead scientist, Shaw. Set out to a distant planet, Shaw hopes to uncover the secrets of human existence by interacting with an alien civilization that she feels may have created humans in the first place. Naturally, when they arrive, things don't go as planned.

Perhaps the best and worst thing about Prometheus is the acting. Noomi Rapace fills in Shaw with an intriguing mix of idealism, ambitious curiosity and politeness. She is definitely the heart of the film, and Rapace, being a talented actress regardless, does her damnedest to provide a fleeting sense of weight to the film's overall context. Michael Fassbender as the android, David, also makes a strong performance. Fassbender plays David as a mincing enigma, at turns courtesy, heroic and devious, he plays a key role in setting the Weyland Corporation's agenda into action. Guy Pearce also stands out as Mr. Weyland, though his role is extremely brief.

But then you have this cadre of ham-handed support roles - almost like all the creative juice was spent on Shaw and David. Rapace shares the protagonist spot with Logan Marshall-Green, a dead ringer in looks for actor Tom Hardy, but not at all as talented as him. Marshall-Green plays Shaw's love interest and fellow scientist, Halloway, as a sort of...bro scientist? The glaring inconsistency is that he's supposedly sensitive to the trappings of science, yet he provides the cowboy bravado of the crew and berates David, a pure product of science, at every turn. Throw in a goes-nowhere villianess performance by Charlize Theron, a contradictory ship captain played by Idris Elba and an inane crew that is made up of cookie-cutter caricatures (two guys that have some weird bet with each other, the spiky crewman who wants no friends, the doughy crewman who only wants to be friends with the guy that wants no friends) and you can imagine why Prometheus feels very unbalanced.

However, even more inconsistent is the way the film is paced. The first 30 minutes of the movie has this very measured flow to it, leading from Shaw's expedition on Earth to a cryo-sleep sequence where David takes care of the ship, watches old movies and shoots hoops while riding a bike. It's a strong build-up with time for the characters to breath. Right after the crew's briefing with Weyland, the film begins to jolt forward in very strange intervals. There are weird turns where important information is tossed in, then resolved within a matter of minutes (such as Shaw's infertility). It feels like the plot and subplots have all been smooshed and funneled down to fit a tight run-time, acceptable for most audiences. By the time Prometheus careens down the hill to it's inevitable conclusion, you find yourself wondering, "did all of this serious business just happen in a matter of 20 minutes?"

Even with the rampant issues of the film, there's no denying that Prometheus is a great bundle of cinematography, set design, special effects and refreshingly intense horror sequences. The ship interior is a great mixture of white bulkheads, stylish digital interfaces and glowing orange-yellow lights, the crew's exploration suits have a satisfying mix of bulky armor plates, well-placed LEDs and streamlined diving suit underlays. (SPOILERZZZZZZZ) There is a gorgeous sequence where Shaw gets caught in a sort of metal sandstorm, with small sharp chunks of shrapnel cascading around her as she hangs on to the ship for dear life. Of course, the craziest sequence has to be where Shaw finds out she has been impregnated with a monstrous-DNA fetus and must use an advanced medical pod calibrated for men along with self-injected anesthetics to extract the thing before it kills her.

All in all, Prometheus is a half-cleaned up mess. It looks good and it sounds good, the acting is good...sometimes, the plot is paced well...sometimes, the characters are interesting...sometimes. I feel the lesson to be learned is that all the hype and viral marketing in the world won't save a film from it's financial obligations or its attempts to satisfy everyone at once. Prometheus is ultimately a good idea crushed down by the massive car pile up at the intersection of art and commerce.

Breakfast at Tiffany's (1961)

I feel that, in order to judge a film like Breakfast at Tiffany's fairly, I need to take it at 95% face value. I think part of accurately valuing art is seeing just how it stands up to the ultimate test - time. So, how does this massively popular film, with one of the most iconic female characters in Hollywood history, stack up today? Not well. It has nothing to do with the technical elements of the film - cinematography, editing, pacing, music. The disaster lies in the portrayal of Holly Golightly, a character supposedly being criticized for her reckless spirit, but in actuality is celebrated for her idiosyncratic unaccountability and glibness.

The film centers on an upscale apartment complex in New York, where Paul, a struggling writer, moves in and meets Holly Golightly, the building's resident high school thesp (over-the-top acting is Audrey Hepburn's forte, naturally). Intrigued by her quirks and flippant socialite lifestyle, Paul begins to spend more and more time with her. The two eventually begin to confide in one another and emotions are thrown around, but Holly's tendencies soon send her flying back to her careless, gold-digging ways.

Breakfast at Tiffany's features some very well-constructed camerawork and gorgeous cinematography, that would have been better served on a character study with three-dimensional mirth. All the scenes in and outside the apartment complex have a very careful, lock-and-flow alternation that frames the meticulous set design with grace. From Holly's apartment of curiosities to the austerity of Tiffany's, the film seems to craft a diverse range of flora and fauna, all within a five or six block radius.

The film is obviously supposed to be a cautionary tale, but with the glitz of New York, an alluring actress like Hepburn filling Holly's shoes and the delightfully bizarre decorum of her apartment, I think most people are too dazzled to care. In essence, you can think of Holly Golightly as a prototype for the wanderlust pixie image that so many women have adopted and distorted over the years. Constantly strutting around like life is entitled to them, surrounding themselves with men under the pretense of "friendship" and wrapping it all up in a bow of eccentricity and tomboy elegance. Holly echoes these behaviors with her wild and superficial parties, her interest in marrying up to ease her financial burdens and her "dangling the keys" over Paul, the only man that genuinely cares about her.

Underneath that freewheeling exterior is a mass of insecurities, selfishness and a gnawing sense of hypocrisy. Holly is a woman with no direction, no direct claim on her life and she knows it. In a sense, the woman is tormented by her "nature", writing off any form of stability or authenticity as a "cage". With the right tone, Breakfast at Tiffany's could have been an extremely interesting portrait of a troubled woman, attempting to figure out how she wants to spend her life. Instead, it comes off as a shallow celebration of "wild hearted" women, with virtually no consequences to be found.

Even at the climax, where Paul, frustrated that Holly won't even acknowledge the great times they had together, finally tells her like it is: "You call yourself a free spirit, a "wild thing," and you're terrified somebody's gonna stick you in a cage. Well baby, you're already in that cage. You built it yourself. And it's not bounded in the west by Tulip, Texas, or in the east by Somali-land. It's wherever you go. Because no matter where you run, you just end up running into yourself". Not moments before this, Holly was considering flying on a whim to Brazil, even after she finds out the rich suitor she was trying marry didn't want her.  And yet Paul just accepts her back? After playing the jilted fool for so long? Would she really learn anything from such a quick turnaround? So, there is this retrograde acceptance of her behavior, even when the film purports that her spontaneity has only led to unhappiness.

It would have empowered the film immensely if there were white-hot consequences for her actions - something to really drive into her skull that such a frivolous lifestyle has a wide range of pitfalls. However, Breakfast at Tiffany's fails to send up the signal flares that so deserve to be shot, leaving an audience of uninitiated women to only take away the glamor of a wild existence. I get the feeling that generations of women have mistakenly identified Holly as a beacon of women's liberation and a personification of their vibrancy, when, in actuality, she is nothing more than a mirror reflection of the most disregarding qualities of men. She is not at all an early icon for feminism, which is about equality and ethics between the sexes. It's a distinction that I feel not enough will care to make then, now or in the future.

Shame (2011)

There's a real disappointment that occurs when movies that are generally well-conceived contain one or two disparate elements that seem to unravel the envelopment which a film had previously been building. These elements, though singular and/or intermittent, cast rain clouds over a grand landscape, just enough to taint your experience. It's that kind of nag that prods at the back of your mind, the "why did they do that?" sentiment repeated over and over, forcing any good feelings you might have had to be watered down. The goodness still remains, but the badness has gradually taken over due to sheer frustration, like a fly in your soup.

Steve McQueen's Shame falls into this unfortunate situation. Looking at the film in broad strokes, it's a smart, visually precise experience that shines light on the inner-conflict of a sex addict, played by Michael Fassbender. However, there are three particular sections of the movie that seem to ram home a hammy poignancy, under the "cool" guise of the dark modern art house drama. These sections, which occur at the beginning, near-end and end of the film, act like shitty, hastily constructed bookends for an otherwise powerful experience.

The story of sex addict Brandon Sullivan is framed by camera angles that refuse to budge - be it Brandon laying in bed, his sister, Sissy, singing in a club, Brandon and Sissy having an argument on the couch - it's a satisfying and intrusive visual aesthetic that seems to presuppose the audience's judgement against Brandon's character. Equivalent to staring hard at someone who has done you wrong, Shame gladly forces you into the role of naysayer. Yet, as the movie follows Brandon through his daily work, his relationships with prostitutes and his obsession with internet porn, a portrait slowly builds of a man tormented by his impulses. Though the air of critique remains, an undercurrent of pity begins to take shape as the film goes on.

It's not to say the entire movie is all stationary shots that invade the moral compasses of the characters, though. There is fluidity in the film and McQueen applies it expertly. The best example is a gorgeous tracking shot, that dollies from a medium distance alongside Brandon as he goes for an impromptu jog in the middle of the night. Stricken by his boss and sister having sex in his apartment, Brandon decides to get the hell out of there. Throwing a gentle piano sonata on his MP3 player, he jogs down his street in the middle of New York, the early hours of the morning weighing down upon him. The camera moves along with him, never attempting to collect a close-up here or a coverage shot there. The scene doesn't end anywhere special, but the action of Brandon leaving his own place to avoid a monster of mixed emotions is all that's needed to propel the simplified sequence to great heights.

By far the most interesting aspects of Shame are Brandon's implied incestuous relationship with his sister and his attempted relationship with his co-worker, Marianne. When Fassbender and Carey Mulligan (who plays Sissy) are onscreen together, it's pure fireworks. The two play out their respective roles with a deep, underlying frustration - an active, tormenting curb to their wild instincts. In the flourishes of violent arguments, ignored phone calls, tearful admiration and joyful reposes, you can tell that they so desire a certain passion to be affirmed, but as to what specifically, they don't even know.

For Brandon, it's a frustration that feeds directly into his doomed relationship with co-worker, Marianne. When the two embark on their first date at a fancy restaurant, Marianne speaks fondly of monogamy and marriage, which Brandon promptly laughs off. He attempts to explain to her the uselessness of relationships, that the idea of devoting yourself to one person is ridiculous. Yet, it makes an impact on him. He attempts to make a clean break from his addiction and pursues something more with Marianne, but when he whisks her away to a hotel to get down to business, he finds himself impotent. It's an incredibly powerful scene that cements Brandon's inability to indulge himself in the face of responsibility.

So far, Shame sounds like an intriguing and stylish film, but it's about time I talked about those shitty bookends. Employing a montage format, McQueen drops a nuclear bomb of dramatic goo with scenes of Brandon fawning after a girl he sees on the subway and a night where Brandon goes around having anonymous sex, whilst ignoring pleading calls from his sister. These scenes are set to painfully yearning string arrangements that would make John Williams blush. Considering how downplayed the rest of the film is, these moments blast their way in and out of consciousness, and you're left wondering what the hell happened. Yes, I understand that Brandon is tormented by his addiction. No, I don't need swirly bear strings and throat-shovel montages to reinforce the already clear-cut narrative.     

It's funny, because I felt similarly when I saw McQueen's other film, Hunger. He has these great scenes and well-developed characters, but it's almost like he doesn't feel confident they'll get the message across. So, he inserts clunky transitions, heavy-handed music and little aside situations that he hopes will solidify things, but they drag his movies down instead. Essentially, that is what Shame boils down to. It's a good movie with solid performances all around and a strong visual construction, but it's brought down to a mediocre experience thanks to this insistence that we won't get the point without a good dose of spoon-feeding.

Alice in the Cities (1974)

Wim Wenders' films exhibit a power of placement. It's a power that is subtle and burns slowly, but, oh man, does it burn so good. Never one to shy away from deeply reflective and minimal journeys, Wenders has an intense interest in his characters - who they are, why they are who they are, where they are going and how they will get there. His films may float along, but they are always defined by poignant character development and gorgeous cinematography. He may have some followers amongst the "mumblecore" crowd, but he saves himself from any true association with the movement (besides his time and placement in cinema history) by recognizing that even meditation and subtly must be made interesting with a strong, permeating context.

Alice in the Cities is a great example of all these things, made immediately apparent by the way the film softly treads around German journalist, Philip Winter. It exudes such a world weary compassion that there is no doubt Wenders held a personal vestige in the character's life.

The film tracks Philip as he travels listlessly towards New York City, taking pictures of American life along the way. Lingering too long over an assignment for his European publishers, Philip finds himself forced to return home. He meets Lisa, a fellow German, and her daughter Alice at the airport while attempting to buy a plane ticket home. Spending the night in a New York hotel, Philip becomes acquainted with Lisa and Alice. The next morning, Philip finds himself left alone with Alice and a note from Lisa, asking him to take care of her daughter. Events gradually lead Philip and Alice to travel back to Germany together, where they go in search of Alice's grandmother.

In all honesty, the plot is just an excuse of happenstance, all in order to put these two characters together and to see what might happen. Philip and Alice's adventure feels like a favorite pair of old shoes - comfortable and well-worn. They quarrel and bicker constantly, but there is always a presiding sense of compassion through a shared uncertainty in their destinations. Philip must deal with the fact that he doesn't know what to do next in life, while Alice must contend with the idea that her mother has abandoned her. They are two characters that are searching, but don't want to deal with the ramifications of finding answers.

The pair's bittersweet relationship gives Alice in the Cities a vitality that engages without trespass or frustration. Alice criticizes Philip, but retains a charming wonderment about his life, especially his lack of direction. Her blunt questions about his parents and his photography force him to accept his current status in life, while the pair's continued journey gives him a good reason to just be. On the other hand, Philip becomes irritated by Alice's constant misdirection (in order to delay having to leave him), but he finds comfort in reassuring her that she's not alone.

Framing New York and Germany in sterling black and white, Alice in the Cities is shot through with small experiences that leave a resounding impact. In these experiences there is a natural blend of humor and poignancy. Scenes such as when Alice wants Philip to tell her a bedtime story, then subsequently falls asleep as he struggles to tell one, as well as when Alice asks a woman if she thinks Philip is her father, leading to Philip and the woman having sex and Alice becoming jealous, illustrates how a movie of little occurrences can be more powerful than one with a centralized structure and huge moments.

In a sense, the characters are simultaneously the most interesting aspect of the film and also simply a part of the scenery. That's the exact point where Wenders skills shine the brightest. He allows the movie to breath, but never to waste away. I feel like so many directors try to make triviality, slow pacing, reflection, meandering and quiet into something that pushes against the normal rigors of narrative films, but they end up tripping over themselves into trite idiosyncrasy and sloppy matter-of-factness. Alice in the Cities is a form of proof that Wenders doesn't take anything for granted. He says, "Hey, check out these characters, they might interest you. Please enjoy their journey", where as some other filmmakers say, "HEY, CHECK OUT HOW FUCKING WEIRD AND INTERESTING THESE CHARACTERS ARE! CHECK OUT HOW LIFE CAN BE SUCH A LISTLESS TRIFLE BUT TOTES PROFOUND AT THE SAME TIME, AHAHAHAHEEEEHAHAHA".

Alice in the Cities is such a relaxed film you could almost imagine Wenders directing it from a beach chair. With aimless characters, low-flow pace, a reflective acoustic guitar score and expressive locations, the film lingers in the best way possible. It allows you to turn off your busy schedule, to turn off the expectations of life, to turn off the constrains of a linear path and just hit the road with two endearing people. To hell with the destination. It seems like such a cliche "enlightened world traveler" sentiment, but Wenders finds a genuine articulation of the idea in Alice in the Cities.

Daisies (1966)

Over the years I've soured on '60s New Wave films - the more I see, the more I am disenchanted. I think most of the movement has been overly romanticized by a lot of critics and fans. It's as if the historical and social associations in which they came from are enough reason to keep propping them up year after year as amazing, undefeatable works of art. There's not enough focus on the content and not enough separation from the historical context to warrant a genuine reading of the entire movement. However, there are a few New Wave films that I feel successfully escaped the ravages of time. They've side-stepped the movement's inevitable irrelevance and bounded into the territory of eccentric legacy. It's always nice to discover even more of these films, especially by surprise. The Czech film, Daisies, is my most recent addition.

I can't say I thoroughly "like" Daisies, but at the same time it provides an endless amount of curiosity and unforgettable imagery. It's not so much a movie as it is an abstract narrative collage, pieced together by disparate moments, revolving camera filters and esoteric set pieces. Director Vera Chytilova goes out of her way to disorient and muddle the story of two spoiled young women as they indulge in extremely reckless, selfish, and ultimately, meaningless behavior in order to throw her audience for a loop and most likely poke holes in a male-centric bourgeois class of Czechoslovakia at the time.

The pair of women (whose names are never clearly stated) have a freewheeling appetite for destruction. They swindle old rich men out of their money, manipulate love-struck suitors into falling for them, crash fancy parties and banquets for free food and booze, lounge around in bed with scissors as they systemically destroy their own room out of boredom - all the while laughing it off without a pang of conscience to speak of. These are two girls that you hate to love - they're hyper-intense unaccountability becomes charming in a very backwards way.

You don't want to condone their lack of etiquette, you don't want to smirk at their cocky narcissism, you don't want to be endeared by their flippant disregard for other people - but you do. At least, I did. It's kind of like watching a car crash and being awestruck by the force and gravity of the event itself, rather than focusing on the horrible aftermath. These two women are demons incarnate but they are charismatic, gorgeous and, most of all, intriguing.

As it remains vehemently wild and unpredictable, Daisies is filled to the brim with small details, scatterbrained vignettes and a frothing sea of minutia. The girls' room, for example, is a testament to the intricacies of set design. It seems every time the story returns the pair to their room, it is decorated differently - always in garish, haphazard fashion - but always different. Chytilova takes time to pan slowly around the room as the two bask in the consequences of their behavior, snipping sausage links with scissors and pasting magazine cut-outs on the wall. In a sense, these are the calm moments before the storms. These are the moments where you reflect, almost in conjunction with the characters, on why they act the way they do.

But Chytilova doesn't have any answers to offer. Amidst the camera's playful flip-flops between black and white, color, blue filters, red filters and orange filters, the film never makes a point of explaining why the two women act the way they do. There are a few moments of exposition that reprimand the duo, but it concedes that they would not recognize how to change their ways, even if they were willing to.

You could perhaps construe that it's a meditation on women's liberties in the '60s, and that such behavior was seen as destructive by men in Czech society at the time, but I feel like it leans more toward the transcendental quality of cackling anarchy. I enjoyed the film because it never apologized for the behavior of the women, instead glorifying their foolishness to an absurd degree. It's perhaps an even more deviant and frightening portrait of what society might be like without responsibility and ethics thrust upon it, than the countless post-apocalypse scenarios you find all over the place in movies and books.

Daisies is a film which ultimately points out that life is a mess and sometimes there is nothing moral or meaningful to be gleaned from it. It's that sentiment in itself that makes the movie work so well. It's chaotic structure and black-humored self-awareness provide a straight shot to the gut that will definitely leave you pondering. Nothing is sacred and there are no consequences. It's just two crazy women getting trashed, smashed, sexed and stuffed - in a very evocative and satisfying fashion.

In Favor of Articulate, Discriminating Moderation: Irrational Positivity (Critic)

Irrational Positivity (Critic)

In my last post, I spoke about the breakout of irrational positivity found in the audiences of art - those willing masses (or small groups) who seem to want every new form of popular or niche stimuli they are exposed to be the ultimate/thrilling/romp-tastic/ridiculous/amazing thing that either holds their attention for all of two and half weeks until they move on to their next big catch OR remains in their big, slouching bag of opinions wrapped in a coating of superficial context. The important point I attempted to outline last time was distinguishing between genuinely positive opinions of works of art - wrought from reflection, moderation and discrimination - and blinded-by-science, rah-rah enthusiasm - a combination of short-term memory, lazy wonderment and fair-weather acceptance.

There's a major difference between enjoying Citizen Kane on a deeply felt, pure level and enjoying it because expectation and common wisdom have dictated it be so. I remember hearing my entire life how "amazing" Citizen Kane was, how much of an American masterpiece it was, how vital of an experience it was. I was bombarded with these grand-standing slogans at every turn and it was hard to form a cogent, personalized expectation of the film. I finally saw the damned thing and, of course, I didn't quite share the effervescent cheer that so many critics and fans (irrationally positive and genuinely positive) had.

It wasn't that I went into Citizen Kane with the resentful aim of hating it no matter what - that would be a hefty dose of hypocrisy. I went into it as neutral as possible and gauged it for what it actually was. I'll be honest, I thought it was an interestingly shot film with an engaging premise, but these particular elements of a film do not make the whole experience. I also found the film meandered and provided it's own painfully transparent self-importance. In short, I thought it was -alright-. The film, in my opinion, is not nearly worthy enough of the obligatory praise that it receives on a yearly basis.

There's a line of thinking where a work's historical context is the insurmountable argument against negativity towards it. Which, naturally, is total bullshit. There's a difference between respect given to works of art for the conditions they were fostered within and actually enjoying the work itself, IN ADDITION to respecting said context. And this, my friends, is where the IPCs (Irrationally Positive Critics) enter the game - because where else is historical context more perpetuated, than by critics?  

Citizen Kane is such a perfect example of this ideology. IPCs would have you believe that the film was the end-all-be-all of American cinema, ramming it's historical relevance down your throat until your personal taste is completely suffocated (whether you realize it or not). Citizen Kane contained many technical achievements and  an unprecedented amount of artistic freedom at that time in Hollywood, but is that merit enough to automatically enjoy it? IPCs think so. Their brand of irrational positivity comes from a dogmatic education and interpretation of film born from the halls of academia.

Common academic methods, such as analysis and contextualization, can be useful tools in forming coherent, discerning opinions on works of art, but there is a dangerous line to be walked when applying said methods. Academia can stifle intuitive understandings of the art work in question and even force people out of their gut feelings entirely in order to fit some subsidized cultural interpretation. The opinion, though eloquent and thoughtful, is representing one very specific way of reading a work of art. It voids most of the personal enrichment that could have come without the needling clockwork and societal extrapolations of academic theory.

On the other hand, you have the "feel-good" IPC, who turns even the shittiest, most detestable work of art on the planet into a light-hearted tease. Film critic Gene Shalit was a major proponent of this method, using ridiculous puns to soften the blow for any film he did not like and kiss the cheeks of the one's he did. The irrational positivity here is self-evident. How do you learn anything from a person so afraid to actually dig in and tear something to pieces when the need arises? How do you learn anything from inscrutable praise based on fluffy observations, marketing buzzwords and cute rhymes?

I am not a fan of Roger Ebert, but at least he has the gusto to be passionately negative about a film when he thinks deserves it. Ebert hates a favorite film of mine, I Am Curious Yellow, and though I disagree completely with his assessment of the movie, I respect that he had a genuine reaction to the film and articulately communicated thus to his masses. On the flip-side, Ebert adores the New Wave classic, Last Year at Marienbad, which I despise, but I appreciate that his positivity is culled from an authentic place within. He is primarily steeped in academia, but I do think Ebert injects enough personal reflection into his reviews to warrant respect.

Naturally, IPCs and IPAMs (Irrationally Positive Audience Members) are a self-perpetuating and self-congratulating lot, so it's hard to plunge your hand in and rip away the heart of the beast. Their fervor for positivity is so strong, they would see the world burn around them before they gave an inch on the merits of Community or the integrity of LCD Soundsystem. Still, folks who are aware enough of their own tastes can learn a thing or two from the world of spoon-fed enthusiasm. You can avoid the indiscriminate and unaccountable paths people take to arrive at their cardboard "opinions" on works of art. You can hold on to the works that really mean something to you, despite the tumultuous sea of endless new trends. You can sidestep preconceived notions, academic posturing and party-line critical praise in order to form your own opinion. You can do this and be proud of the fact that when you liked that movie, that album, that book, that sculpture, that mixed-media collage, it was an appreciation that came, first and foremost, from within.

In Favor of Articulate, Discriminating Moderation: Irrational Positivity (Audience)

I thought I'd take a break from movie reviews this week to drop some thick cultural observations on the various ways people react to arts criticism and the methods in which art critics present their opinions, all in an effort to expel some personal grudges and present how I developed my own methodology when it comes to reviewing art. These are opinions that have been marinating in my brain for a little while now, and I'm hoping they taste just right - that I did not put too little or too much brain-sauce on these slabs of thought. However, it's one of those things where passion tends to trump cordiality, politeness, benefit-of-the-doubting, etc, in favor of a wild dose of pure honesty.

To ease the presentation of these scattered thoughts on arts criticism, I've decided to explain my ideas in four sections that I feel succinctly organize my whole point - Irrational Positivity (Audience), Irrational Positivity (Critic), Irrational Negativity (Audience), Irrational Negativity (Critic) - sections that highlight the disparity of opinions and overblown reactions to specific works of art. I'll end things with a fifth section, Discriminating Moderation, in which I'll explain how my own critical methodology (both as a critic and an audience member) was formed in an effort to avoid the pitfalls of the previously mentioned mind sets.

Irrational Positivity (Audience)

Firstly, what do I mean when I say "irrational positivity" as it applies to arts criticism and an audience? Irrational positivity  describes the way some people act after they have experienced a work of art (especially right after), where discrimination goes out the window and the work gives them a kind of exuberance (in this case, a mixture of genuine and forced) -  so much that it's practically oozing out of their eyeballs. It's not to say a  person is "wrong" for developing a fervent bond with a work of art, I don't think that has to be explained. However, I do find that there is a disparity between the honest construction of a newly formed positive opinion and a slippery synthesis of collective appreciation, first-timers syndrome and a general lack or all out negligence of self-reflection.

Let's use Jurassic Park as an example. Let's say Ted goes and watches Jurassic Park  for the first time, well after its prime and initial popularity, but riding a wave of nostalgic or classic popularity. He says that he loves the movie. But does he love the film itself or the film's reputation? Does he love the film or does he love the director's reputation? Throughout his life, Ted has likely been told how great Jurassic Park and Steven Spielberg are (conversely how much they suck, but I'll get to that view point later) by friends, family, an indiscriminate assortment of web writers and, if he's enough into reviews, critics he enjoys reading.

With all that outside influence, can Ted watch Jurassic Park in any kind of true, original fashion? Personally, I don't think so. Not unless Ted is self-aware enough to step back from all the opinions he has synthesized, really open his eyes and watch for himself - not his friends, not his family, not the critics - himself. If he can place himself within the space of the movie and just let it be, than he can have a genuine reaction, whether it be positive or negative.

Comedian Pete Holmes phrased it well in one of his podcasts, where he talked about people actually having an "opinion". In speaking about one of his unfinished bits, Pete explained that he hated when he went on dates and asked them what they thought about something, like a movie, and they simply said, "it's amazing" in response. For Holmes, that is NOT an opinion. There is nothing backing it up, it has no sinew attached to it. They just blindly adore that particular movie.

And fuck forbid you actually challenge the sweeping joy for a film or record of one of these IRAMs (Irrationally Positive Audience Members), because they will crucify you with smugness and passive aggressive condescension at every turn. Even suggesting some lack of even-handed observation on their part will send them on a tilt-o-whirl of over-compensation, with wildly aimed judgements at your own thought process. It's that kind of "oh, well, he's questioning my joy for this thing I love and suggesting that maybe, just maybe, this film I love is not the definition of perfection - time to undercut his criticism by making him out to be a negative, pretentious troll".

The issue that IRAMs don't seem to understand is - especially in a public space like Facebook, a forum, a club meeting, a comment strand or other communicative arena - opinions are fair game for scrutiny, even by friends and acquaintances. I understand that trolls have kind of ruined the credibility of those who actually have reasonable but discriminating taste, but IRAMs certainly don't understand the distinction. It wreaks havoc on a genuine, fair-minded exchange of thoughts. Even if IRAMs ask why their opinion of a beloved work has been questioned or criticized, it's nearly always posed as a challenge rather than a welcome cycling of ideas.

A great example of this lies in the arena of highly anticipated Hollywood blockbusters. It's not like Hollywood has ever given us a consistent reason to anticipate anything they put out, but if you speak a single critical word about a serious huge flick, ala The Dark Knight Rises, such as the possibility it's just rehashing ideas of previous entries in the series, which weren't amazing to begin with, IRAMs will eat you alive. You haven't suggested that the movie is going to be downright terrible, you haven't said it's not worth watching, but it doesn't matter to the positive lynch mob. In fact, I think IRAMs are more obsessed with the anticipation and trends surrounding the film, rather than the film itself.

This definitely happened when Kick-Ass was coming to theaters, everyone rode that bandwagon hard and never gave a second thought as to how it'd be executed. It was a graphic novel movie with a slight post-modern twist on comic book heroes, and that was enough. Then it was pretty much universally terrible, except a few interesting elements, and people said it was still "a good attempt" to save face with their social circles.

I feel many lessons can be learned from the IRAM view point, not least that you can love something to pieces and still recognize and tip your hat to the flaws in it. Another lesson to learn is that there isn't always justification for those flaws found in some round-about logic. Naturally, all art is subjective but there is a line where people need to just let go and admit that, yes, this part of this work is personally shitty to me and I don't like it. The most important lesson, though, is taking art with a grain of salt from the get-go. Some might assume this stifles natural reactions and expression to a work, but in fact, tempered scrutiny will only strengthen your bond and allow you to take the negativity in stride, debate with reasonable coherence and set the bedrock for a well-informed, multifaceted taste.

The Night Porter (1974)

It's not everyday you come across a World War II film that takes a very personal and subversive route for it's storytelling. Liliana Cavani's The Night Porter is an anomalous post-war film that goes off in wildly sexual and bizarre directions, never once thinking to bludgeon you over the head with tired WWII idioms. There are no easy, hyperbolic Nazi villains, no sad-sack accounts of Jewish prisoners, no blood-spattered Normandy beach invasions. The Night Porter is, instead, a deeply felt exploration of the sadistic relationships that form in the face of overwhelming decadence, power and cruelty.

The film is set 13 years after the war, following Maximilian, a former S.S. officer that now works as the night porter at a prestigious hotel in Vienna. One day, a former prisoner of his, Lucia, walks into the hotel. The meeting conjures up feelings of the past and the two start to fall into the sado-masochistic relationship they had during the war. Max's old comrades actively work to clear him of his past by tying up any loose ends and eliminating any witnesses to his past actions, but Max begins to worry as they set their sights on Lucia.

The Night Porter, with it's straight-across editing, features so many stark, unforgettable moments, you'll be reeling by the end of it. This is primarily because half of the film plays out in the memories of the various characters, daydreaming at a familiar sight in the present day. Cavani expertly juxtaposes the past and present, drawing a firm, dark line to show that things may change but old habits die hard. The most powerful scene of the film is constructed in this fashion, where Max and Lucia separately attend the same ballet performance.

As the dancers get underway, Max observes Lucia a few rows ahead of him, and their shared memories come gushing forth. The austere classical music of the ballet continues to rise as the scene shifts to Lucia - roughly cut short hair, pale, darkened eyes and emaciated - sitting in a musty hospital bed surrounded by other prisoners. Max approaches in full Nazi uniform, taking her away to conduct his experiments. As the memories progress, there is a visible mark of enjoyment in Lucia's eyes. The punishment and pain have turned into a pleasure of dependency and domination.

Luckily, the sexual sadism in the film is never exploited or turned into a grotesque monster. Cavani's camera provides an even-hand, framing Max and Lucia's relationship with an understated grace. In fact, towards the middle of the film, it becomes something of a bizarre love story. Max attempts to keep Lucia alive and away from the clutches of his old comrades, no matter the cost. It's because the two are inextricably bound by an obsession with punishment and dominance, an obsessive, inverted affection that is only shared between them.

Though Charlotte Rampling does a fine job as Lucia - particularly during the famous cabaret scene where she is half-naked, wearing an S.S. hat and trousers - the film is tailored much more towards Max, and Dirk Bogarde delivers in spades. Bogarde plays the ex-Nazi as a smug, cunning and quiet man who has transcended his obedience and loyalty to the Third Reich, but still revels in the twisted machinations that his given power allowed him. All the mild-mannered exchanges, punctuated by soft smirks and kind eyes, have a pitch-perfect execution, making Max simultaneously the comforting protagonist and the inscrutable villain.

The only major failing of The Night Porter is the pedestrian original score. It's a set of harmless, jazz-infused pieces that sound very indicative of the opening credits to a '70s TV sit-com. If the film had only relied on the occasional disquieting classical and opera pieces featured in several key scenes, The Night Porter's sense of solidification would be complete.

Of course, it's a rare case where the score doesn't sabotage the experience. Cavani's portrayal of the taboo, politically rapturous relationship between Max and Lucia is captured with such a clear-headed moderation, it makes The Night Porter a daringly original film, even to this day. The director's tasteful penchant for high-art visuals and ironically affecting relationships will put you in a strange, but ultimately satisfying, space. And at the end of the day, who couldn't do with a little Nazi decadence?

Melancholia (2011)

Lars Von Trier is the fucking mack-daddy of misanthropes, especially when it comes to filmmakers. This is an idea he, more or less, admits to in interviews and explores in full depth with the bulk of his movies. Plastered like rancid, gummy flesh across the conceptual walls of his mind is Lars' obsession with the dark impulses of humanity. He seems to find fear and delight equally in all the corruption and stupidity that people have wrought in our time on the Earth. And so his films are all about punishment, consequence and inevitability - I feel he wishes to see humans suffer for their hypocrisy, their ignorance, their malice, and what better way to exercise those demons than through the medium of film?

Von Trier's latest turn, Melancholia, may largely follow suit with the rest of his filmography but this time he puts his deep-seated frustration, fear and humility on the grandest scale possible - the end of the world. Melancholia takes places at a remote golf course/mansion, where two sisters attempt to keep their lives together amidst the impending collision between Earth and a traveling planet. The film is broken up arbitrarily into two parts, one focuses on the younger sister, Justine, and the second focuses on the older sister, Claire. I say it's arbitrary because the story merely continues chronologically and each sister plays an equally important part in the others storyline.

Kirsten Dunst pulls off an excellent performance as the deeply troubled, inconsolable Justine. Yes, you read that sentence right, Kirsten Dunst actually has some chops. It's proof that there are many actors out there (just think of Mark Ruffalo in Zodiac as another example) waiting to unleash themselves but are relegated into generic and listless movie roles for the bulk of their careers. Dunst's Justine is the dour, black heart of the movie. Dunst highlights a mixture of extreme anxiety and desperation during the wedding party sequence, in which Justine is bombarded by the expectations of her family and her employer. In the second part of the film, Justine gradually transforms into a sort of doomsayer sage. She's calm, collected and ready for the end, traits which Claire, who is normally composed and rational, is forced to take shelter in as Melancholia approaches.

Von Trier uses the two sisters as sort of yin-and-yang harbingers of imminent doom. They both know it's coming, but they each deal with it in different ways, at different times. They each interact with Claire's son, Leo, in different ways, as well. At times, you get the sense that Claire and Justine are just one personality trapped in a perpetual somersault of schizophrenic opposites. There's many scenes of Claire coddling and caring for Justine, bathing her, feeding her, but the dynamic changes. In a scene where both sisters are sitting at the table, Claire speaks to Justine with deep uncertainty, saying how it'd be nice to have wine and play music before the end comes. Justine snarls back at her that none of that matters, it's the end. The stability has shifted to Justine, who is seen as a pillar of support when the void is embraced.

It's not to say Von Trier's end of things is all doom and gloom, though. The film is at first a mix of sharp black and yellow contrast, then a dream-cloud of gorgeous light blue and green - haunting colors that permeate the scenes leading to Melancholia's arrival. Music from Wagner's Tristan and Isolde bellows in on sparse occasions, hinting at and eventually heralding the end of days. The film also takes place on a golf course. It's an unlikely setting which has to be the director's ultimate tongue-in-cheek slight at a sport that literally defines the corruption and complacency of the privileged. Perhaps it is the upper class that Von Trier seeks to punish in the film. Maybe Melancholia is an answer to their collective sins.

Even with that idea in mind, I have to admit that Melancholia plays it too close to the chin at times, especially when Justine flat out says the line "The Earth is evil", when Claire asks her why this is all happening. Alright, Lars, thanks. Because that gargantuan cataclysm in space wasn't an obvious enough metaphor. There's also the question of the necessity of the wedding party to the story. It's an interesting sequence of events, but some of the subplots, such as Justine's relationship with her husband, father and mother are never recalled or spoken about after they fade out of the story. It's as if Lars couldn't figure out how to successfully marry the social observations in a world denying it's fate and the eventual solidarity of the apocalypse.

It took me a good two weeks to figure out if I actually liked Melancholia, and I think on the whole I really do like it. There's a specific seepage and gravity that Von Trier tends to achieve with his films, usually making you like (or hate) his work only after a due period of reflection. This happened to me after I watched some of his other films like Europa and The Element of Crime. The best thing I can say about Melancholia is that, in true Lars fashion, it's a movie that doesn't pull any punches. There's nothing to soften the blows and no places to turn for comfort. It's a genuine lightening bolt to the gut, and although it isn't my favorite Von Trier film, I'm glad he made it.

The Future (2011)

There's a high a degree of artificiality running through Miranda July's The Future, that makes the movie almost obnoxious to watch. It's ironic because you'd think a movie that paints an intimate portrait of a couple on the verge of an emotional and existential crisis would be anything but artificial. However, July takes the long way around, turning what could have been a genuine emotional catharsis into a dog and pony show for hipsters. I don't use the term "hipsters" as a vague generality, either. Certain movies, like The Future, are moving in this very specific direction - the way characters talk, the way the movie transitions from scene to scene, the way music is implemented. This kind of understated, enigmatic visage is speaking directly to a range of personas that have been forged in the fires of superficial culture and taste.

That is, ultimately, what a "hipster" amounts to in my experience. Someone who latches on to the surface level of trendy or purposefully obscure philosophical, historical, political and scientific ideas, music, movies, technology, books, language, sex, visual art, fashion, nature, etcetera, in an attempt to create a particular image for themselves, to join an "exclusive" community of the like-minded and to garner a shallow sense of self-expansion. It's not a matter of, "does this interest me?", it's more like, "does this interest me enough that I can use it to appear cultured/intelligent/cynical/compassionate/mysterious/ambitious/forthright?". Yes, that means even you're grandma, who votes democrat every time just because they're vaguely considered the "liberal" party and doesn't really care to conduct a full examination into what the party stands for, is something of a hipster.  

The Future seems to cater to the interests of book hipsters in particular - the kind you'd find in any self-respecting college fiction writing program. It plays out very much like a magical realist short story, written by a junior at said college, with all the speaks-for-itself drama, dips into surrealism and esoteric dialogue that you can stomach. The couple, Sophie and Jason, seem to have a relationship built on breezy minutiae and fanciful extrapolations. They sit in their apartment, speaking about stopping time with their hands and picking out a song that reminds them of their relationship, one that would shake them out of a proposed amnesia. They talk about their mild dissatisfaction with their jobs, they touch on the pervasiveness of the internet in our lives.

These are topics that can be presented in an intriguing fashion without the feeling of put-upon curiosity that July rams down your throat. While obviously a very personal film, the writer/director assumes that her audience is on board for all the theatrics she has to offer. That presumption leads to the artificiality I spoke of before. Like a play by Tennessee Williams, the dialogue and character motivations are so stilted that you end up feeling nothing for them. Several times throughout the film, I was yelling in my brain, "NO ONE TALKS LIKE THIS UNLESS THEY'RE TRYING REAL HARD TO DO SO".

I found Sophie to be a particularly insufferable character, and it wasn't love-hate, trust me. July portrays Sophie as a mousey, impulsive 30-something who ends up cheating on Jason with an older man. She's clearly dissatisfied with their relationship, but it wasn't enough motivation to randomly jump off the deep end and into bed with a total stranger. There's a scene in the film which Sophie highlights the lack of accountability found in certain women. Laying in bed with Jason one night after she has cheated on him, sleep does not come. She is wide awake and eventually Jason wakes, feeling her heart beating faster and faster. He asks her what's wrong and she struggles to answer. She manages to say, "I'm wild", to which Jason says, "that's ok", and she replies, "no, it isn't".

This could have been a very poignant scene, but there is no gravity or sinew attached to it. Movies aren't required to answer deep sociological questions, such as the nature of a cheating heart, in the midst of their drama, but July was clearly implying negativity toward the reckless nature of some women, perhaps even herself. It definitely wasn't a neutral observation. The problem is that she never provides any results of her musings. She just leaves it at, "women do things that don't necessarily make sense and come to regret it anyway". And I just thought, fuck that. You have the opportunity to change minds or provide some insight to a certain degree and you elect to just shrug your shoulders and pull a shit-eater smile?

That's fundamentally what's wrong with The Future, it doesn't really say anything while attempting to make you feel a whole lot. Essentially, a movie hipsters can be proud to say they watched, enjoyed and thought was quietly profound. Jon Brion's calming ambient guitar score only bolsters the idea that the movie was ready-made for that guy or girl you always see wearing flannel shirts, and they won't shut the fuck up about Bon Iver or Wilco, and they're too proud about riding their bike around, and they make sure all their coffee is Fair Trade. It's a shame, though, because in the past, Miranda July turned her idiosyncrasies into enjoyable little trinkets with Me and You and Everyone We Know. There seems to be a fine line between fashion statement and storytelling, and July must be walking it constantly.