First Time Watches - February Top Ten
A short month, but no shortage of bangers.
Outrage, directed by Ida Lupino
A scream for help in the noirish night. The first Hollywood film confront the subject of rape, though it does not call it by name. Directed by Ida Lupino as only a woman could (the assault scene, pictured above, is harrowing), it concerns a young women, living a fairly idyllic life in a small town who, after the attack, is compelled to leave out of a mixture of shame and townspeople indifference. She drifts to a town on the west coast, where she begins to heal, with the help of a sympathetic preacher. Very strong stuff for 1950. Lupino, the first woman after Dorothy Arzner to consistently work as director in Hollywood (she was also, of course, a successful and brilliant actor) is an auteur of the highest order.
Five Came Back, directed by John Farrow
A cracking survivor story from the underrated auteur John Farrow (Wake Island, His Kind of Woman). 8 passengers crash, the plane can only take the weight of 5 to escape. Volunteers are required to stay back. Farrow remade this as Back to Eternity in 1956, to less effect. Stirring stuff.
Matewan , directed by John Sayles
Not sure whey it took me so long to get around to Matewan, which strikes me as a great American epic, in a league with Bound for Glory, The Right Stuff or Little Big Man. A dramatization of the Battle of Matewan, when coal miners reluctantly got the Union and had to fight for their lives and livelihoods against "The Company," Sayles offers no easy bromides or solutions. Union, Yes! but does it stand any real chance does it have against a voracious system bent on capital over everything? The final shootout, while brilliantly staged and shot (by the great Haskell Wexler), is one of the least cathartic I can remember. Yes, a few very bad men get what's coming to them, but good men die, too. A wobbly balance exists, but nobody wins. Which come to think of it is a fine summary of the ethos of John Sayles.
Porcile , directed by Pier Paolo Pasolini
"After a thorough examination of our conscience, we've decided to eat you because of your disobedience." These are title cards before the first image. And it only gets more Pasolini from there. If you are curious about the lead actor in this, the riveting Pierre Clementi, here is a good piece from the great Nick Pinkerton from the Village Voice archives.
Fresh Kill, directed by Shu Lea Cheang
I was reading about a Blu Ray release of this and a bunch of excitement over it, I had never heard of it. Initially I thought it might be a grotty William Lustig-style New York slasher given the title, but it is really more a satire on the growing gentrification of the city in the early 90s, told from a slacker perspective. Inventive and funny, I felt some similarities to The People's Joker with its LGBTQ-forward, scrappy D.I.Y. ethos and jumble of ideas. The title is a play on Fresh Kills, an estuary in Long Island that is one of its primary settings.
Resurrection, directed by Bi Gan
Bewildering and gorgeous phantasmagoria from emerging auteur Bi Gan. Exemplifies the William Hurt line from The Big Chill: "sometimes you just need to let the art flow over you." Lots of homages in a film that is essential about going to the cinema, my favorites are Irreversible and Lady From Shanghai.
The Second Civil War, directed by Joe Dante
Dante's epic satire, made for HBO in 1997, watched now plays like flipping to and fro legacy news channels. The Civil War begins when the Governor of Idaho closes the borders to keep immigrants out. Other states, feeling immigrants are surely to blame for all of their problems, too, join forces and things get ugly. Huh. It's dark and takes no prisoners, but hilarious, and has one of the most extraordinary casts of stalwarts as one can imagine (James Earl Jones, James Coburn, Beau Bridges, Elizabeth Pena, Joanne Cassidy, Brian Keith, Ron Perelman, Dan Hedaya just to start).
Magellan, directed by Lav Diaz
Positively taut by Diaz standards (a crisp 164 minutes), an intimate epic that, in Diaz's own words, "reverses the look between the colonizer and the empire." It is the first time he has used a bona-fide international movie star (Gael Garcia Bernal as Magellan) and, perversely, Diaz shoots him almost primarily in long shot and medium shot. Entertaining, savage, and not the the Magellan they taught you in school.
Belfast, Maine, directed by Joseph Wiseman
Kanopy has a huge trove of the late great Wiseman's film. This is just one of many you should catch up on. Quintessentially Wiseman, it tells of the every day life of the inhabitants of a fishing village in the titular town. Typical style with no judgement, no narration, no music, it simply observes and it is mesmerizing. 4 hours fly by.
Les Creatures, directed by Agnes Varda
It begins with an extreme close up of a smiling Catherine Deneuve, who gives a sly look right at the camera. Dolly back to see she is beside Michel Piccoli, and they are zooming through the French countryside in a convertible. I couldn't be more in. I decided to catch up on my early Agnes Varda this month and was rewarded with this tonally mixed weird one. Totally rewarding. Piccoli, who was everywhere in world cinema in the 60's, plays a novelist named Piccoli. He talks to animals. He engages in a mysterious game with an enigmatic man in a tower, manipulating the lives of the people in a French village where Piccoli and Deneuve are slumming. With its themes of game playing, very Marienbad-influenced. It shifts from shimmering black and white to a sort of weird Infrared color whenever the characters are compelled to misbehave. A beautiful 2020 restoration of a mostly forgotten and somewhat disreputable work from the great Ms. Varda. On Kanopy. Go!
