Under the alias BiPolar, Dirk Driesen has released a number of animations which are often accompanied by a calm, mysterious soundtrack. His latest video, “The Zebras from Peenemuende”, consists of several dark images including a futuristic pilot, a missile being launched, and, of course, a herd of zebras.
WEIRD HORIZON FOR THE WEEK OF 6/3/2011
A look at what’s weird in theaters, on hot-off-the-presses DVDs, and on more distant horizons…
Trailers of new release movies are generally available on the official site links.
IN THEATERS (LIMITED RELEASE):
Contractor’s Routine: Indie about a contractor named Jacob who has lucid daydreams about killing people, and an imaginary friend named Esau who tries to keep him in line. Sounds weird. We’re not sure what to make of the fact that the official website reprints the film’s Sundance rejection letter as if it were an endorsement. Only playing in San Francisco, where it was shot; we’ll look for it on DVD. Contractor’s Routine official site.
Film Socialisme (2010): Jean-Luc Goddard’s latest film is enigmatically described as “a symphony in three movements,” titled “Things Such As,” “Quo Vadis Europe,” and “Humanities.” It’s split critics right down the middle, and it looks very weird. Opening at the IFC Center in Manhattan, with very sparse screenings at specialty venues across the US to follow through the summer. Film Socialisme at Lorber Films.
Yellowbrickroad: Years ago, an entire New England hamlet disappeared when the entire population marched up a mysterious trail; now, the original trailhead has been found and some researchers plan to follow it. The low-budget project sounds like it has a real Blair Witch Project vibe, but most interesting (to us) is the fact that this movie is being distributed by a blog (bloody-disgusting.com). Yellowbrickroad official site.
NEW ON DVD:
Kaboom (2010): Read our capsule review. Gregg Araki‘s latest mix of sex and teen weirdness arrives on DVD. Buy Kaboom
Never Apologize (2007): A recording of a one man show in which Malcolm McDowell reflects on his association with Lindsay Anderson on the “Mick Travis” trilogy (If…, the Certified Weird O Lucky Man!, and Britannia Hospital). Fans of McDowell or of the fascinatingly weird series may want to check this out. Buy Never Apologize
Passion Play (2010): Fantasy fairy-tale starring Mickey Rourke as a jazz musician and Megan Fox as a “Bird Woman,” also with Bill Murray and a grown-up midnight movie teen idol Bud Cort. It flopped at the Toronto International Film Festival and currently holds a remarkable 4% at Rotten Tomatoes (at one point it was 0%, until a favorable review rolled in from the New York Post). If there’s something really wrong with it, we’d like to see for ourselves. Buy Passion Play
Undertow [Contracorriente] (2009): We’re going to let The Guardian‘s Steve Rose sum this one up for us: “...if you only see one gay Peruvian fisherman ghost story this year…“ It’s south-of-the-equator magical realism, natch, and was Peru’s official selection for foreign film Oscar consideration. Buy Undertow
NEW ON BLU-RAY:
The Cat O’Nine Tails (1971): Blue Underground continues releasing their Dario Argento catalog on Blu-ray with this early giallo (the director’s second film), starring Karl Malden investigating murders at a genetics laboratory. Reportedly not his best movie (apparently, the director himself thought it was his worst), but Argento completists will want to take note. Buy The Cat O’ Nine Tails [Blu-ray]
A Clockwork Orange (Anniversary Edition) (1971): Stanley Kubrick‘s classic weird and disturbing morality fable, featuring an iconic, star-making performance from Malcolm McDowell, about an experiment to rehabilitate a young criminal by chemically castrating his free will. The new special features are Malcolm-centric, including a DVD commentary by the actor and two new featurettes. Buy A Clockwork Orange (Anniversary Edition) [Blu-ray]
Passion Play (2010): See description in DVD above. Buy Passion Play [Blu-ray]
Stanley Kubrick: Limited Edition Collection: Includes Spartacus (1960), Lolita (1962), Dr. Strangelove (1964), 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968), the Certified Weird A Clockwork Orange (1971), Barry Lyndon (1975), The Shining (1980), Full Metal Jacket (1987), and Eyes Wide Shut (1999). It also includes a short hardback book with essays on the movies. If we’re not wrong, all of these have previously been released on Blu-ray except Lolita and Barry Lyndon, which are simultaneously being released in single disc versions, and which also happen to be the only two that arrive without any special features. It’s still a great introduction to the master director who was unafraid to go weird up until the very end. Buy Stanley Kubrick: Limited Edition Collection [Blu-ray]
FREE (LEGITIMATE RELEASE) MOVIES ON YOUTUBE:
The Brother from Another Planet (1984): A mute alien, who looks like an African-American human, crashes his spaceship in Harlem as he hides out from (white) alien bounty hunters. This offbeat comedy/immigration allegory from John Sayles made some waves when it was released, but never quite became a cult classic. Watch The Brother from Another Planet free on YouTube.
What are you looking forward to? If you have any weird movie leads that I have overlooked, feel free to leave them in the COMMENTS section.
TOD BROWNING’S OUTSIDE THE LAW (1920)
Although Lon Chaney has two roles in Outside the Law (1920), he is not the star; rather, the film features early Tod Browning favorite Priscilla Dean. Dean plays Silky Moll, daughter of mobster Silent Madden (Ralph Lewis), and both are attempting to reform under the guidance of Confucian Master Chang Lo (E. Alyn Warren).
Black Mike Sylva (Chaney) interrupts the reformation by framing Silent Madden for murder, so that Silky Moll, like Lorraine Lavond in The Devil Doll (1939), now has a wrongly imprisoned father. Silky and Dapper Bill Ballard plan a jewel heist with Black Mike. Unknown to Mike, Silky is aware of his betrayal of her father and, with Bill, she double-crosses Mike.
Escaping with the heisted jewels, Silky and Bill hole up in an apartment. The time the criminals spend holed up in a claustrophobic setting is awash with religious symbolism that points to transformation. Browning, a Mason, repeatedly used religious imagery and themes. In West of Zanzibar (1928) Phroso stands in for the self-martyred Christ and calls upon divine justice under the image of the Virgin. In The Show (1927), the sadomasochistic drama of Salome is reenacted and almost played out in the actors lives (Martinu’s opera ‘The Greek Passion’ would explore that possibility in a much more sophisticated, and jarring, degree). Where East is East (1929) utilizes Buddhist and Catholic symbology. Priests and crucifixes play important parts in The Unholy Three (1925), Road to Mandalay (1926), Dracula (1931- possibly the most religious of the Universal Horror films) and Mark of the Vampire (1935).
Here, Bill tries to convince Silky that they can have a normal life. Puppy dogs and small boys begin to have effect on Silky, but it is not until she sees the shadow of the cross in her apartment that her tough facade gives way. Browning is not one to allow for a genuinely supernatural mode of transformation and reveals that the cross shadow is merely a broken kite, but its psychological effect on Silky is manifested in her actions, and her beauty. Bill notices the origin of the cross shadow and, realizing that Silky’s naive interpretation of that image has inspired her to renounce her crimes, Bill allows her to continue in her naivete. He draws the blind so she cannot see that her inspiration comes from a child’s kite. As Silky begins to drift away from a life of bitterness and crime, towards redemption, she physically grows more beautiful (a transformation achieved through soft lighting and composition). It is not the inspired symbology of the cross alone, but the prophecy of Chang Lo that frames the outcome. Chang Lo has been consistent in his belief that Silky will reform and he strikes a deal with the investigating constable that, should Silky return the jewels, all charges have to be dropped. Here again, Browning’s heart is too much with the criminal to allow for a full-blown punishment, something that later Hays Code Hollywood would demand.
Chaney’s small bit as Ah Wing is so subtle and so effective as to almost be unnoticeable. Browning remade Outside the Law in 1930. The remake starred Edward G. Robinson and received comparatively poor reviews. While the remake is not available on DVD, this original is. Kino Video has done a good job in its presentation, but the last quarter of the film is marred by nitrate deterioration, which is not altogether intrusive to viewing.
88. THE PILLOW BOOK (1996)
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“I am certain that there are two things in life which are dependable: the delights of the flesh, and the delights of literature. I have had the good fortune to enjoy them both equally.”–Sei Shōnagon, “The Pillow Book,” Section 172.
DIRECTED BY: Peter Greenaway
FEATURING: Vivian Wu, Ewan McGregor, Yoshi Oida
PLOT: Every birthday, Nagiko’s father draws calligraphic figures on her face while ritualistically reciting the story of creation. Nagiko grows into a beautiful young fashion model obsessed with the intersection of calligraphy and sex, seeking lovers who will use her naked body as a canvas on which to write. She meets and falls in love with a bisexual British translator who convinces her to write on others’ bodies, and together they conspire for revenge against the publisher who wronged her father.
BACKGROUND:
- The “Pillow Book” from which the movie takes its title is “The Pillow Book of Sei Shōnagon,” the diaristic collection of anecdotes, observations, poetry and lists by a lady-in-waiting to Empress Sadako of Japan in the Heian era (the book was composed around 1000 AD). Shōnagon’s work, though probably never intended for others’ eyes, became one of the classics of Japanese literature and a tremendous source of historical data about the Japanese imperial court. Greenaway was inspired by “The Pillow Book,” but the film is not an adaptation of Shōnagon. In an interview he explains: “I took some of [the book’s] sensitivities, primarily where Sei Shōnagon said, ‘Wouldn’t the world be desperately impoverished if we didn’t have literature and we didn’t acknowledge our own physicality?’ And the movie’s just about that.”
- Occasionally, the spoken Japanese dialogue is not translated into subtitles. This is deliberate.
- Venerable cinematographer Sacha Vierny had shot Greenaway’s previous six feature films and had previously worked with Resnais (Hiroshima Mon Amour, Last Year at Marienbad), Buñuel (Belle de Jour) and Raoul Ruiz (The Hypothesis of the Stolen Painting, Three Crowns of the Sailor), among other notable (and weird) directors.
INDELIBLE IMAGE: There are a bewildering number of nominees to choose from, especially since Greenaway frequently places two or three images on the screen at once, picture-in-picture style. The overwhelming repeated image is that of writing inked on nude bodies, however, and so the shot of glowing letters cast on Vivian Wu’s darkened, reclining body as she writes in her diary in bed best captures The Pillow Book‘s visual fetish.
WHAT MAKES IT WEIRD: The Pillow Book is a movie about a fetishistic, eccentric, obsessed character, brought to us by an auteur with firsthand knowledge of those qualities. Greenaway splashes the screen with visual extravagances, with pictures framed inside of other pictures, and images layered on top of one another, melding one into the next. Full of obscure musings about the nature of art and sex, The Pillow Book tells a story of lust and revenge, but subjugates the text to the image, the narrative to the cinematic. The result is visually hypnotic, frequently frustrating, and all Greenaway.
Trailer for The Pillow Book
COMMENTS: A man and woman make love. The entwining limbs are spectral, as their Continue reading 88. THE PILLOW BOOK (1996)
CAPSULE: THE QUIET (2005)
DIRECTED BY: Jamie Babbit
FEATURING: Elisha Cuthbert, Camilla Belle, Edie Falco, Martin Donovan, Katy Mixon
PLOT: A deaf girl becomes ensnared in her adoptive family’s amoral dysfunctions.
WHY IT WON’T MAKE THE LIST: The Quiet is an artfully produced, comparatively non-formulaic independent film, but it’s not a dramatic enough departure from the thriller genre to constitute a truly weird viewing experience.
COMMENTS: Strong sexual themes ground this strange tale of a family slowly going insane. After her father’s untimely death, deaf-mute teenager Dot (Belle) is taken in by her godparents (Donovan, Falco) who from outward appearances have a conventional, affluently idyllic suburban life along with their cheerleader daughter Nina (Cuthbert). Dot’s transition is derailed by increasingly disturbing conflicts and revelations. Her new family has dark secrets.
A sick, twisted dysfunctionality plagues the household. Trapped between an opiate addict mother, licentious father, homicidal sister, and perverted new beau, Dot struggles to keep her perspective. Unable to readily communicate, and with no outside party to turn to, Dot is at a disadvantage when her demented new family draws her into a sordid web of immorality and charade. The line between spider and fly becomes blurred, however, when it turns out that Dot harbors her own eerie enigma.
The Quiet rips the facade from blissful, suburban tranquility in the tradition of movies such as American Beauty and The Safety Of Objects. Less satirical than the former and not as convoluted as the later, The Quiet is a suspenseful drama with an hypnotic narrative tone reminiscent of One Day Like Rain and Make-Out with Violence.
The Quiet is a well produced film with a perverse story. It does not set out to be a black comedy, or a sophisticated social indictment of suburbia, although it contains some elements of both. Neither is it a movie with a message or mere exploitation. The Quiet is a simple, racy, psychological thriller. With some hauntingly memorable dialogue, it is arty yet lucid, brooding and visually dark. While more twists and turns would have provided greater depth, it is structurally complete enough to be worthwhile for patrons seeking a departure from blockbusters, crowd-pleasers, and annoying Lifetime Network potboilers.
Feminist director Jamie Babbit’s other films include But I’m A Cheerleader and Itty Bitty Titty Comittee. Viewers will recognize Cuthbert from the sensational The Girl Next Door.
WHAT THE CRITICS SAY:
The Quiet trailer