Change Your Image
ikennethrios
Reviews
Cat People (1982)
Channeling A Sexual Beast: 80s Style
Despite having been young, semi-conscious (I was under five years old) and possessing few actual memories of the nineteen eighties, the decade has a certain personal eroticism for me. The powdery skin, shimmering camera-work, the outrageous kink and camp of the clothing, the archetypal section of dim-minded actresses performing with the joyful vacant-eyed faces of children: these all stir my heart. The film Cat People was a smarter film when compared to too much of the artistic output of the nineteen eighties but it also suffered from the strangeness of the times. First of all, Nastassja Kinski has a sublime beauty that would attract in any decade but was especially characteristic of ideal notions of sexiness for those years. Her eyebrow were that exquisite Madonna-esquire thick, her lips in a permanent state of partial openness with full-on pout, her hair cut to that boyish cute, and her shoulder pads speaking volumes about her feminine authority. Even her cat-like demeanor, connected to the premise of the film, was equivalent to popular depictions of women as sex kittens. In essence, her performances in the film can be interpreted as one of the finest expressions of the nineteen eighties soft-lit, softcore pornographic aesthetic.
Secondly, as a horror film, it managed to offer moments of decent creepiness in the vein of the times. Fear, of course, has been a universal and timeless emotion yet it can be provoked in a manner reflective of the era. The Germans of centuries ago used grim and blood-spattered folk tales to frighten, director Paul Schrader used shadow. Shadows were such a magnificent aspect of the nineteen eighties aesthetic because their perfect in lockstep with the soft-lit light (consider the Vogue video). Schrader employed shadows in an eerie manner that kept the viewer guessing, achieving what few horror directors actual get from their audiences: fearful concern about what was in the dark. Consider two scenes: when Malcolm McDowell lunges from the shadows as the beast and when Nastassja Kinski has a passion moment in that darkened room. Schrader brilliance was to make the shadow both fearful and erotic: the dark has been traditional as fear-provoker and yet can be quite intimate as well. In mixing the two emotions successfully, Schrader made the film a unique creature for the horror genre.
Third, that soundtrack Giorgio Moroder and Bowie crafted must be one of the strangest in the history of film. Starting off on a campy note, the music over the reddish desert of the first scene ought to make a person either laugh or weep but it does get better. Listen to it; it goes with the images on screen like magic.
Do the Right Thing (1989)
Masterpiece; No.
Leni Riefenstahi's biographer once complained about his inability to disconnect himself from the subject of his analysis, complaining that Riefenstahi "did to my slumber what her fuehrer did to Poland". Spike Lee's Do the Right Thing cannot be said to have such a powerful impact that it disturbs the dreams of its viewers but there is a rare power in the film that disturbs the mind. Therefore the film needs to be understood by emphasizing the viewer's role in the creation of meaning and the director's responsibility in guiding the audience in that process.
The magnificence of the film is in the manner that Lee fashioned a realistic urban world populated with memorable characters and then allowed it to explode due to the irrationality of racial tension. This world is not an Eden but the viewer sees it in a healthy and functional condition that adds to the sadness at the end when everything falls apart. Lee, however, also managed to capture (through his artful direction) the beauty of decay and devastation in this human tragedy. The problem with the film is how Spike directs the audience in terms of drawing meaning of these events.
The film has been described as a sort of litmus test; capturing in the opinions of viewers their unobstructed racial sympathies and allegiances. There is trickery in this interpretation however because the film had been made in such a matter that it is not fair in its depictions; the viewer is made to feel for certain characters more so than others. The grandest illustration of this can be seen during the final scenes of the film when Mookie goes to demand his weekly pay from Sal. The audience, like Sal, has an understanding that Mookie is a slothful, undeserving worker and that he betrayed Sal's affectionate feelings towards him. Race has nothing to do with how the audience should respond to this moment; all the viewer needs do is to reflect about the positive and negative aspects of the characters.
The problem the film has however is that the African-Americans in the film are not presented in a fair light in their relationships with non-African-Americans characters. The white man with the bike that dirtied Buggin' Out's shoe, the Korean store-owners, Sal and his family are all treated disrespectfully in some form during the course of the film by African-American characters. There is a sense that within this neighborhood composed of predominantly African-Americans, that other races are not welcomed. The film does have sympathetic African-American characters, but during the riotous violence near the end the viewer can see that nearly everyone is involved. It is humanity at its worst, made up of entirely people of African-American descent and the audience understands that these people of color are responsibility for the crimes. Within the context of the film, the viewers are made to feel a lack of respect for an entire race of people.
In a powerful scene just prior to the riot, Radio Raheem dies at the hands of two Anglo police officers. The police are depicted as employing excessive physical force of the victim; they undervalue the rights of the residents because of their simplistic understandings of the neighborhood and its people. Specifically, the police are attempting to suppress an oppositional criminal element that they have connected with the entire African-American community as a whole; to them, to be black is to be in the wrong. It is racism, pure and simple. However the character of Radio Raheem is less significant to the overall story of the film than Sal and therefore when his pizzeria is destroyed the audience cannot help but feel more affected. Spike Lee would argue that this is because the viewer values white-owned property more than black life. Lee, who wrote the film, needs to remember how a narrative directs the sympathies of the viewer. He made the viewer care for Sal; the viewer is not racism for following Spike's narrative.
Spike Lee has publicly stated that white viewers are those most likely to seriously question whether his Mookie was justified in breaking the window of Sal's pizzeria and thereby inciting the riot that would ultimately destroy the Italian-American owned eatery. His reasoning was that the murder of Radio Raheem had made the riot defensible, or at least comprehensible, and the fierceness of their aggression served as a misdirected channel for their uncontrollable resentment against the injustice. The argument that human life is infinitely more precious than that of a brick and mortar structure is not simply understandable but it is an obvious reality that all sensible persons would freely admit. Lee's observation that African-American audiences would find this truism easier to grasp suggested the nature of the film, explicitly, that the film was tuned to frequency meant for an African-American audience. Such an interpretation on the part of Lee, while legitimate, is too limiting for a film that has much more to express than differences in the racial perspectives of the audience.
Elephant (2003)
High School Was Never Interesting
Adolescents and their bewildered escapades have provided fruitful grounds for filmmakers seeking to exploit our collective remembrance of youth. Tapping such a reserve has never amounted to a momentous effort; the reminiscences of our lives in the agreeably simplistic and womb-like universe of academia are shallowly kept below the surface of the subconscious mind. The peculiarity of those high-school years does not allow for it to easily slip from our memories and the mind can generally recall adolescence on a deep emotional level. The surrealism of that span of time ensures it will not fade: the freedom from adulthood responsibilities without the pleasures of true independence, the satisfaction of first-time experiences tempered with the lost of naiveté, the ability to express epic concern over minor issues without real-world consequence, the relevant lack of emotional baggage and the promise of an illimitable future. Filmmakers have understood the universal nature of the subject and have crafted their films around these themes. Yet as storytellers, whose ultimate objective is the construction of absorbing narratives, these filmmakers have taken their plots outside of the realm of the mundane reality of high school and pushed their films into adolescent fantasy. The benefit of such an approach has been twofold: the films have had more interesting story lines and had increased their appeal to the public's desire for exciting high school experiences which they typically did not enjoy.
Gus Van Sant's irrelevantly named "Elephant" does not attempt to create such an artificial perspective of adolescent life. He does not force a narrative onto the commonplace business of high school, allowing the day's events to unfold to their final tragic conclusion without fishing for a story within those events. Inspired by the incident at Columbine high school, the pivotal event of the film is the sadistic murder of students at the hands of two of their peers. Horrifying as the shootings are, Van Sant does not provide any context for the butchery nor does he offer any type of emotional buffering prior to the event. All that is depicted preceding the murder scenes can be described as blissfully humdrum: students stroll from classroom to classroom, cheerleader practice their twirls in the foothill field, the school's main office is a buzz with staff as well as students, and people engage in true-to-life conversation about the most everyday subjects. When the shootings start, it is a blunt and hard nosed blow to the world that had been painted with the earlier scenes. As in the horror genre known as slasher, the director has taken the monstrously evil and placed in deep within the heart of the suburban universe. On another level, however, it is another type of assault. High school is the meaningful bridge between our lives as dependent and ultimate freedom of adulthood: thrusting the evils of the adult world into a youngster's sphere is equivalent to destroying that meaningful time in the cruelest manner possible.
Gus Van Sant has made beautifully poignant film although not a masterpiece. The events move sluggishly because its realism weighs too heavily on the plot and thus the film has a problem with remaining fascinating. Slow though as the high school scenes are, it is the most realistic portrayal in any film I have ever seen.
Elvira: Mistress of the Dark (1988)
Jungian Camp
The magnetism radiated from Elvira, drawing her legions of devoted admirers, has a primordial quality. With her lengthy, well-toned figure, large-bust, innocuously mischievous attitude and grab-bag lexicon of me-generation valley slang, the character of Elvira has a universal and timeless appeal. As an aspiring folklorist and an individual deeply interested in the structure of storytelling, it is evident that the Elvira persona has certain archetypal elements that help to make the character more than the sum of her corny one-liners and large chest. As initiated from the manner in which the children of the town react to her, she represents the deep adolescent fantasy for an experienced woman whom can connect to them of their level: a strange mixture of one-dimensional romantic yearning, boyish sexual craving and the desire for non-threateningly lighthearted fun. She symbolizes an undeveloped ideal of womanhood perfected for the boys and a source of strength for the girls of the town. The other adults have trouble with her for the same reasons. In the end, however, her film cannot move pass its more campy ingredients. The end result is that while Elvira is infinitely interesting, her film is limited by how weak a showcase it is for her talents. Nearly everything is tailored to an adolescent mindset and although it is a straightforward comedy, only those who can still process information with the mind of a young person will be able to enjoy the nonsense. Fortunately, I have such ability and found the film to be a delightful charmer.
Best Quote: Bob Redding: How's your head? Elvira: I haven't had any complaints.