JFL

God’s silence and the lamentation of the world like a swamp where man vainly treads the bottom. At the end of his career, Schrader returns to his roots. First Reformed resonates not only with the concept of Taxi Driver, but also its creator’s long-time admiration for Robert Bresson, whom he approximates not only in the level of moral motifs, but also with an austere, economical style that fully unleashes the tension and drama within the characters. More than forty years ago, Taxi Driver shocked audiences with its depiction of a world so depraved that an impulsive maniac who is himself rotten with malice and twisted morality could emerge as a hero. In his latest film, Schrader shows a world and existence that is terrifying not due to imminent danger, but due to the anxiety and hopelessness it induces in us when we stop thoughtlessly living in it and instead try to look at it rationally. The melancholy of First Reformed raises the central character’s inner pain, both emotional and physical, while that pain becomes the catalyst for the paradoxical process of finding new faith for the hero, who has dedicated his life to serving God. It may seem at times that Schrader offers exceedingly easy solutions, but it is the same superficial deception as in the conclusion of Taxi Driver, where even seemingly soothing normalcy only obscures the frightfulness and extreme nature of everything that came before. This time, it could seem that Schrader will be satisfied with another Bresson allusion, but in the context of this terrifying world, it must be mercifully cut into the closing credits. Unlike the problems Travis Bickle saw, the current problems will not disappear with the squeeze of a trigger or even with a kiss.

The fundamental essence of advertising inevitably rears its head – without a story or statement, the characteristic creative style gives the impression of superficial kitsch and the distinctive creator is reduced to a mere name that is intended to add depth to this utilitarian product. On the other hand, advertising, or rather the ideas that it evokes, describes the central paradox of Malick’s work surprising well. His entire filmography deals with innocence, which he places in both context and contrast with the cruelty and violence of the human world, the wrath of nature and the apathy of the universe. Like Malick’s films, this brief commercial will enchant some viewers and disgust others precisely because of the view of the world that it represents and how it looks at or ignores certain factual aspects of the world. The cynic will squeak, the “believer” will grow sentimental, and the expert on Malick’s work will nod in appreciation.

It pays to put off seeing some films until the effects of the PR massage have worn off and the wave of reviews and screams on social networks and databases has dissipated. One can then approach those films largely free of the ballast of responses and expectations. Annihilation is a case of a work that not only benefits from the viewer having a clear and open mind, but to a significant extent absolutely requires it. This is not a sci-fi movie that takes pride in its scientific credibility, but rather in pure wonderment drawn from new worlds and forms in which it urges viewers to immerse themselves. The appearance of fauna and flora here can evoke the apocalyptic and environmental visions of Hayao Miyazaki. Except unlike those visions’ ecological logic of cause and effect, and thus the effort to move from parasitism to symbiosis, the world of Annihilation has no logic, meaning or goal. Its only principle is assimilation and transformation through growth. Garland introduces motifs of loss and self-destruction into his loose adaptation of the original novel of the same name and concurrently adds in the backbone of a possible interpretation of the entire narrative as metaphors for the turbulent dynamics of a relationship between two people and their complicated path back to each other, whereas it is an unavoidable fact that the end of a journey cannot be the same as the beginning. Thanks to its intentionally enigmatic nature, however, Annihilation works best as an expedition to another world that is extraordinarily captivating due to its grotesque monstrousness, unsettling volatility and spectral beauty. In today’s deluge of blockbusters heading out to new planets that remain pleasantly conventional, Garland has succeeded in bringing an element of fascinated wonder back to film.

A poignant short documentary about a film fanatic’s grand dream to have a specialised video rental shop and the terrifying nooks and crannies in which realities packed with balance sheets lurk. The film’s climax, which was positive in its time, bears a touch of the bittersweet today, when we know that a few years later Andrew Leavold would suffer another steep downward swing on the sinusoid of his life in the form of the inevitable extinction of video rental shops. As a result, this documentary about trying to keep a single video rental shop alive remains a lasting testimony to the fan’s love of trash films, which will persist despite changes in the market and viewing habits. After all, Leavold subsequently became a documentary filmmaker himself, having set out on the trail of one of the tapes that he pulls from his collection with excitement in his eyes.

“There could be no doubt about his sex ...” But what is gender, how does it predetermine or limit the lives of individuals and how does it predetermine how an individual’s surroundings treat him or her? All of these questions are contained within this introductory line and the entire film offers a long chain of sequences or rather stimuli on the same topic. Though in the case of the path toward gender equality in the sense of roles and, even better, the dissolution of the very concept of gender the goal is more important than the difficult pilgrimage to reach it, in the case of the film version of Orlando, the journey itself proves to be of key importance not only for enthralling viewers, but filling them with enthusiasm for these ideas. This playfully serious and caustically absurd game of identities, desires and motivations in an absorbing, lavishly baroque fresco serves its numerous stimuli on a platter of permanent aesthetic ecstasy, in the middle of which looms a monument to the acting qualities of Tilda Swinton.

Enchanting illusions about the enchanting medium of illusions and the people and peripeteias that precede the creation of such a tricky work. Unlike Godard’s Contempt, which focuses on the philosophical ideals associated with cinematic art and the creative process, Truffaut focuses on utterly banal episodes from shooting and melodramatic behind-the-scenes intrigues, which he combines with a sincere confessional belief in film not in the sense of the work, but rather in the process and the state of mind. Day for Night became the catalyst of the dramatic falling-out of Godard and Truffaut, when Godard, outraged by the film’s triviality and falsity, wrote an indignant letter to his long-time colleague and friend, which was followed by an equally haphazard response. In many respects, one could agree with Godard. Films are an intersection of money, politics and sex, which Day for Night either completely ignores or attempts to downplay through amusing episodes. Nor can it be denied that Truffaut idealises himself in his own film, and not only when he conceals his escapades with actresses. Furthermore, by delegating them from a figure of the cinema and the work of a dedicated director, which he himself portrayed, to the character of a naïve and dandyish actor played by Léaud, he completely ignores the power and fetishising level of those relationships. However, that is essentially what Day for Night is about, even if Truffaut himself wouldn’t put it that way. It is the confession of a director who balances his relationship to film and says that it is not (only) philosophical and analytical, but primarily a passion. Godard constantly looked ahead and, for him, it was not merely a matter of initiating a new take on film, but constantly rejecting the current one and finding a new form of expression. Conversely, Truffaut went back to the beginning, to his admiration and fascination with films and the actual process of making them, where falsity and make-believe serve for the creation of intoxicating illusions. Day for Night is unavoidably a meta-illusion that, in peering behind the scenes, does not want to disrupt the overall aura of films, but instead reinforces it. Therefore, it is not only more calculated and deceptive in its seeming ordinariness and naïveté, but also more intoxicating and touching than Contempt. The PR staff at Hollywood studios must love Day for Night even more than filmmakers and movie fans do, as it represents the ideal for which they aim in their "making of" promo videos, which are just as manipulative and just as skilfully obscure their internal politics and real dark sides, splendidly arousing emotions in us and nourishing our love for the whole carousel of illusions.

I once thought collaboration with Tim Burton was what gave Danny Elfman his wings. Now I know that it was the shackles that dragged this demon into our gloomy reality from the unruly, nonsensical sixth dimension where he had previously worked with his brother. Forbidden Zone is a geyser of pure creativity unfettered by logic, rationality or taste. Everything here is subordinated to absurdity, caricature, decadence and free association. Psychedelia does not need colours; just more than a small amount of imagination and freedom is enough.

Beyond the Valley of the Dolls was made at a time when the best drugs were flowing into Hollywood and that is made abundantly clear in the film. It was also a unique time, when the great studios, stunned by the success of indie hits such as Easy Rider, gave space and funding to the big names from the fringes of cinema, before abruptly coming down from the hallucination. BVD is a crazy reminder of this short-lived trend and, in some respects, also its peak. While most other filmmakers, such as Roger Corman and Dennis Hopper, were willing only to have their films distributed by the studios, here 20th Century Fox utterly reasonably decided to finance a new project by Russ Meyer, a luminary of titillating fetish flicks and the notional king of nickel-and-dime cinema. In collaboration with the then budding film critic Roger Ebert, who expanded their common theme into a screenplay, Meyer created one of the most elaborate and, at the same time, most subversive studio projects in the history of Hollywood. BVD is purebred camp, where soap-opera kitsch and spasmodic vicissitudes are blended with hippie ideals, elements of trash movies bleed into the artificial world of show business, mainstream and trash writhe in shared ecstasy, while caricatures from men’s magazines speak with a straight face in a new Esperanto composed of flowing hippie expressions and Shakespearean phrases. And with his voyeuristic view, Russ Meyer captures all of this like a boudoir erotic flick. Paradoxically, instead of soap operas, BVD is even more reminiscent of Hanna-Barbera’s trippy animated series of the time, particularly Josie and the Pussycats and Scooby-Doo, Where Are You!, albeit more challenging, bloody and subversive. Meyer and Ebert created a centrefold-style hippie melodrama packed with absurd twists, lasciviousness, kitsch, free love and equally free identities. Here midcult slides into cult, when it gets a metafictional top view and campily overwrought production that elevates superficiality and vulgarity. Ebert stated that his intention was to make a film that would contain absolutely everything while also simultaneously being a satire, a serious melodrama, a rock musical, a comedy, a violent exploitation flick, an erotic film and a morality play. The plan worked out perfectly, so it is no wonder that the result was considered to be one of the worst-rated films of the year, and heads rolled at Fox because of it (and because of the campy Myra Breckinridge, which was made at the same time). However, in subsequent years BVD gained its well-deserved cult status, became a reference work of camp and inspired the creation of other classics of midnight screenings. After all, it is said that a young playwright took his colleagues to a London screening of BVD when they were shaping the contours of a certain goofy musical called The Rocky Horror Show, the film version of which was made a few years later under the patronage of 20th Century Fox.

Tiptoes is a horrifying example of a project in which good intentions take a frightening turn due to an utter lack of good judgment. It was supposed to be a melodrama that would show the normalcy of the lives of little people, but the absurd screenplay and absolutely delusional implementation gave rise to the fact that thoughts of normalcy are the last thing to come to the viewer’s mind. Hell, all of the characters behave like they came out of a photographic comic book and took their storylines and jobs from the most outlandish Latin American telenovela (firefighter trainer, pregnant artist, French Marxist biker) and half of the budget must have been blown on a steady stream of hip new costumes for the main female characters. Apparently in the interest of attracting attention to the film, the casting call drew in a number of stars led by Matthew McConaughey, Kate Beckinsale, Gary Oldman, Patricia Arquette and Peter Dinklage, as well as every little person living in Hollywood and its broader vicinity (yes, even Debbie Lee Carrington of Total Recall fame makes an appearance). The most bizarre aspect that trips up the whole film is the fact that someone had the idea of having Oldman play the main little-person character. The result is a film that is supposed to be a touching melodrama about little people, but instead turns into a bizarre non-stop revue of all kinds of creative ways to give the impression that Oldman is a little person. This means not only that he spent the whole film on his knees and that his character walks with a cane to legitimise his resulting clumsy “walk”, but also that the cameraman and the crew had to take every possible measure to maintain the illusion of his height (or lack thereof). So, we sometimes see him swallowed up in a couch or marching around behind suspiciously arranged furniture. The icing on the cake was provided by the Czech distributor, who renamed the film Ďáblíci (The Devils) and, in a classic video-huckster move, completely distorted the story in an effort to attract McConaughey’s female fans by slapping on the cover the fake quote “A remarkable story and the incredible Matthew McConaughey, who plays an unconventional character”.

At first glance, the outer and inner worlds of three women carried away by the logic of children’s games and dreams will enchant the viewer with a thrilling visuality, so that the characters’ personalities and the viewer’s mind soon melt into the psychedelic narrative. The result is a nightmare from a dollhouse straddling the anarchic surrealism of Daisies, the captivating insidiousness of The Beguiled, the enthralling ghostliness of Picnic at Hanging Rock and the enchanting pathology of Grey Gardens. Like all of the films referred to here, Braid remains an ode to women's sense of belonging and freedom, despite the shackles of the outside world. “Reality will never keep up with our dreams.”