Tag Archives: 1979

It Came from the Reader-Suggested Queue, List Candidates

APOCRYPHA CANDIDATE: ZOO ZÉRO (1979)

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DIRECTED BY: Alain Fleischer

FEATURING: , , , ,

PLOT: A singer spends a night trying to escape from her overbearing manager while pursued by one admirer who insists he heard her sing in a city she’s never been to, and another who claims he lost his voice when he heard she’d given up singing.

WHY IT MIGHT MAKE THE APOCRYPHA: Have you ever thought to yourself, if only someone would make a Last Year at Marienbad/The Magic Flute mash-up, written according to the non-narrative principles of  Eden and After? They could have Catherine Jourdan in the lead as the “A” character, and Klaus Kinski as “M”. . . and why not set it in a grimy, late ’70s Paris overrun with rabid animals? Okay, you probably haven’t; but someone did, and that someone was Alain Fleischer. A director largely unknown in the English-speaking/Region A world, Fleischer moved in the same artistic circles as and . While he was clearly influenced by the same ideas as the better known Alains, Fleischer’s work is perhaps too weird to have been rescued from obscurity; all the more reason to give him some consideration.

COMMENTS: There are so many WTF elements in Zoo zéro I can’t possibly cover them all, but between the ventriloquist chauffeur who only speaks through his socialist revolutionary Donald Duck dummy, to a brothel where clients simply listen to prostitutes describing their actions from unlit rooms, practically every scene features someone, or something, inexplicable.

The opening credits sequence recall those of Eden and After‘s. The actors announce themselves by name, then begin reading texts featuring animals, including the biblical story of Noah and the Ark, and the French fairy tale about Reynaud the fox. Each actor keeps reading as another joins the chorus, until, by the end, the overlapping voices form an unintelligible cacophony. A fitting introduction to the experience of watching Zoo zéro: a movie so jam-packed with references and metaphors, its actual meaning becomes almost impossible to interpret.

Zoo begins at the Noah’s Ark nightclub on a rainy night. Eva (Jourdan), dressed like Liza Minelli in Cabaret, performs before an audience all wearing animal masks. A mysterious man later appears in Eva’s dressing room, saying she once knew him as Ivo (pronounced “Eevo”; all the characters have names beginning with vowel sounds and a majority begin with a long “e”.)

Ivo claims to have heard her performance in Salzburg, in The Magic Flute. Even though Eva says she’s never even been to Salzburg, Ivo has a recording to prove it. Uwe, Eva’s manager, takes possession of the tape and refuses to let her hear it.

The dialogue, while not as obscure as in Marienbad, never resolves Continue reading APOCRYPHA CANDIDATE: ZOO ZÉRO (1979) →

Capsules, It Came from the Reader-Suggested Queue

THEY CAME FROM THE READER-SUGGESTED QUEUE: THE GOLEM (1920) / GOLEM (1979)

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When Dracula, Frankenstein’s monster, the Mummy, and a host of other horror icons were lining up at the doors of Universal Studios in search of eternal fame, somehow the humble golem failed to get the invite. An immensely powerful beast molded out of clay, brought to life by a mystic Hebrew incantation, it may have had too much in common with Mary Shelley’s invention; or more likely, Hollywood’s Jewish studio chiefs prudently sidestepped anything that would offend sensitive and vociferous gentile audiences. Still, even without the spotlight, the legend of the golem has quietly endured, so much so that Golems appear in the vaunted Reader Suggestion Queue twice. Today we examine these two tales, one a literal origin story, the other something more abstract.

THE GOLEM: HOW HE CAME INTO THE WORLD (1920)

Der Golem, wie er in die Welt kam

DIRECTED BY: Paul Wegener,

FEATURING: Paul Wegener, Albert Steinrück, Lothar Müthel, Lyda Salmonova,

PLOT: When the Emperor decrees that all Jews must leave the city of Prague, Rabbi Loew invokes the help of the demon Astaroth to construct a defender for his people out of clay.

COMMENTS: An early classic of German expressionist cinema, you will find quite a few reviews of this silent rendering of the original folk tale about the avenger of clay. They tend to focus on three main topics: the source material that came to inform the film, the peculiar history of how it came to be made, and a detailed recap of the plot. It feels like someone’s got my number, because that’s where my instincts would normally lead me, as well. So let’s try and cover those basesin one fell swoop, and then we can turn in a different direction: the ancient folktale was codified in a 1915 novel, which writer/director/star Wegener spun into a trilogy. The first two, set in contemporary times, are now lost to history, but the third, a prequel delivering the backstory in which a rabbi summons the warrior to defend the Jewish people but soon loses control of his creation, has survived the years, and that leads us here.

That background established, it’s important to note how neatly The Golem serves to meet the moment while paving the way for the horror legends of the future. While the story is set in medieval Prague, the fanciful decoration owes more to Méliès than the Middle Ages: impossible peaks tower over the city, while buildings are adorned with twisty staircases and walls never Continue reading THEY CAME FROM THE READER-SUGGESTED QUEUE: THE GOLEM (1920) / GOLEM (1979) →

Capsules, It Came from the Reader-Suggested Queue

IT CAME FROM THE READER-SUGGESTED QUEUE: DEAD MOUNTAINEER’S HOTEL (1979)

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“Hukkunud Alpinisti” Hotell

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This review includes spoilers.

DIRECTED BY: Grigori Kromanov

FEATURING: Uldis Pūcītis, Jüri Järvet, Lembit Peterson, Mikk Mikiver, Tiit Härm, Nijole Ozelyte

PLOT: Called to an Alpine inn and trapped by an avalanche, a police inspector uncovers a bizarre mix of murder, organized crime, paid assassination, and an unexpected twist that leaves the him in way over his head. 

Still from Dead Mountaineer's Hotel (1979)

COMMENTS: Ronald Knox’s Ten Commandments of Detective Fiction are a handy guide to playing fair with the reader. They are not always scrupulously followed, and shouldn’t be considered  inviolable; some of Agatha Christie’s most popular novels make mincemeat of the rules. But they’re valuable as a guide to what might happen when coloring outside the lines. We turn to this list today because Dead Mountaineer’s Hotel takes a weed whacker to Commandment #2: “All supernatural or prenatural agencies are ruled out as a matter of course.” The result is a mystery that only the most wildly lucky viewer could possibly solve, so reliant is it upon a massive genre swerve. And it’s all exactly as the creators intended.

Brothers Arkadi and Boris Strugatsky (who also wrote the source material for Stalker) adapted their own book, a formal experiment in pulling a switcheroo on the reader. They envisioned a classic locked-room mystery, one in which a smart detective has to choose between a number of suspects at an isolated location, all of whom arouse suspicion in their own way. Think Murder on the Orient Express. Now imagine that the culprit in that classic whodunit was an invisible octopod who entered the train through a transdimensional rift, and you’ll start to get a sense of the sharpness of the left turn in Dead Mountaineer’s Hotel. Because that’s our solution here. It’s aliens. It’s a thoroughly unexpected twist that makes it a failure as a mystery—and a success as something else entirely.

Long before the truth behind the strange goings-on at this remote mountain inn are revealed, there are the strange goings-on themselves. The hotel is decorated in striking 70s modern décor courtesy of set designer Tõnu Virve, with post-space age lines and lots of mirrored surfaces. (The setting is perfectly matched by Sven Grünberg’s groovy synth-based score.) The source of the lodge’s name is peculiarly mundane: a guest disappeared while out climbing and that was that. The unfortunate sportsman left behind his dog, who now works delivering guests’ luggage when he’s not sitting watch beneath a giant portrait of his lost master. And then there are the guests, a motley crew with odd backgrounds and uncertain futures, including a scientist who climbs the walls of the hotel, a beautiful Lothario who seems incapable of making a bad shot on the billiard table, and an older man who curls up on the snow-covered balcony to escape his many allergies.

In every possible respect, our hero does not fit in with these people or in these surroundings. Glebsky, the by-the-book detective, is utterly incapable of drawing outside the lines, and when it appears that there has been a murder, his unswerving dedication to finding a culprit and meting out justice is unshakable. The movie repeatedly tests him: he is asked questions about fanciful theories of the origins of human intelligence, which he sidesteps because they are outside of a cop’s purview. He cannot change his approach to games to meet an unexpectedly strong foe or adjust his dance style to accommodate a freewheeling partner on the floor. When a newcomer arrives at the lodge, Glebsky’s only concern is how this person is connected to the murder. And most crucially, when the plot makes its ultimate transition from mystery to science fiction, and not only are we introduced to aliens but the murder itself is undone, Glebsky is unable to shift his mindset in any way. (Tellingly, actor Pūcītis was a Latvian in a cast of Estonians; he did not speak the same language, and thus was perpetually isolated amidst the production.) He remains utterly committed to his certainty that he’s in a police procedural, and any facts that don’t fit must not be facts at all.

A film made amidst the Cold War in a republic under Soviet domination will inevitably have a political element, and Glebsky is a serviceable stand-in for a state that was so committed to a point of view that stifled dissent in all its forms, even in the shape of contradictory facts. (Thank goodness that’s behind us.) But the extra layer of commentary is not necessary to deliver the tragedy of Dead Mountaineer’s Hotel. Nearly every character demonstrates the ability to perceive new circumstances and adapt to them, even the late alpinist’s dog. But not our hero. He remains shackled to his orders, enables a tragedy because he knows no other way, and ends the film trying to convince himself of the righteousness of his actions. If only he’d been able to roll with the changes when the mystery dropped out from under him.

WHAT THE CRITICS SAY:

“This is another of those movies that’s not really within just one genre as there are elements of mystery / suspense, crime, science fiction, surrealism and horror all weaved in plus lots of flashbacks, nightmares, hallucinations and oddball characters and even some bizarrely-placed b/w newsreel footage showing real people falling to their deaths trying to escape from a burning high rise apartment building. While it’s well-made, handsomely-shot and keeps you guessing, it’s at its best as a visual piece…” – Justin McKinney, The Bloody Pit of Horror

(This movie was nominated for review by MrEvilGuy. Suggest a weird movie of your own here.)

It Came from the Reader-Suggested Queue, List Candidates

APOCRYPHA CANDIDATE: WISE BLOOD (1979)

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Recommended

DIRECTED BY: John Huston

FEATURING: Brad Dourif, Amy Wright, Dan Shor, Harry Dean Stanton, Ned Beatty, William Hickey, Mary Nell Santacroce

PLOT:  In a small Southern town, WWII veteran Hazel Motes  proclaims the foundation of his new Church of Christ Without Christ, but runs into obstacles including a deceptive preacher and his wily daughter, a simple young man who is determined to help by providing a Native American mummy, and a huckster who gloms on to Hazel’s pitch in pursuit of a quick buck.

Still from wise blood (1979)

WHY IT MIGHT JOIN THE APOCRYPHA: Wise Blood pulls off the trick of translating the quirky voice and complex themes of Flannery O’Connor’s writing to the screen, delivering both the surrealism of her situations and the aspirational delusions of her characters in a way that’s faithful to the source material but fitting for the new medium. There’s a lot that an adaptation like this might leave by the wayside, but this one includes every audacious, blasphemous, ridiculous moment.

COMMENTS: I would never have expected to encounter as much John Huston in my tenure at 366 Weird Movies as I have, but a look at the last decade of his career reveals a man who was fiercely determined to do his own thing, but also savvy enough in the ways of Hollywood to play ball half the time in exchange for freedom the other half. So the man’s going to flirt with weird at about a 1:1 ratio. Stints behind the camera for Annie, Victory, or Phobia seem like down payments for more dedicated efforts like Prizzi’s Honor, Under the Volcano, or The Dead. Wise Blood definitely falls into the latter category, as the director waited patiently for his chance to adapt O’Connor’s first novel, undertaking more commercial ventures until his neophyte producers finally came up with the funding. Once he had it, he worked fast and affordably but without compromise.  

I almost feel like all I need to tell you is that it’s a grand showcase for Brad Dourif. A legendarily weird character actor, Dourif takes to a leading role with gusto. His Hazel Motes is an astoundingly meaty part, a character made up of vast contradictions and competing emotions that all somehow fit together logically. He rails against the unkept promises of organized religion, but becomes irate at the sight of false devotion. He yearns for connection to others, but recoils at anyone who would try to attach themselves to him. (He’s at his happiest with the prostitute whom he pays for her affections.) He tools around in a beat-up Ford Fairlane that even he seems to recognize is beyond repair, but he insistently defends its honor against any criticism. We will quickly learn that Hazel is a parfait of fierce pride and acute embarrassment, and the combustible mix only makes him more ardent in pursuit of a purer truth. Each setback heightens his intensity, each failure leads him to repeat with ever more determination.

Alone, Hazel might seem too weird to endure, but Wise Blood surrounds him with a murderer’s row of supporting players who demonstrate that he’s as much a product of his surroundings as he is his own mass of peculiarities. Stanton is a con man whose tongue drips with moral superiority, while granddaughter Wright hopes to use her skills of deception to trick Dourif into a marriage bed. Beatty has a small but crucial role as a sidewalk swindler who infuriates Dourif by not only being better at street preaching but using that talent to fleece the readily gullible masses. Most eccentric of all is Shor, a simpleton with a fascination for mummies and gorillas for whom no surprise revelation of the truth is ever a disappointment. And all this strangeness is just part of the fabric. Everyone’s weird, but no more so than the next guy.

Which points to Huston’s oddest and most successful trick: Wise Blood is a film truly out of time. Are we seeing O’Connor’s 1952, with the settings, costumes, and attitudes of a society still finding new footing after a world war? Or is this the Macon, Georgia of 1979, neck-deep in national malaise and taking an initial stab at a post-racial new South? Huston chooses not to choose, turning O’Connor’s characters into unwitting time travelers who occupy the physical present day but live in a spiritual yesteryear. It makes for a curious watch, but perfectly fits these people who long for change but refuse to be changed themselves.

It says something about both author and director that the final scene of Wise Blood, in which our protagonist’s unyielding principles lead him to his ultimate fate, is both sad and funny. Not bittersweet, but ruefully humorous. It’s the perfect coda to the tale of a man who refused to be relatable and never stopped wondering why he couldn’t relate. O’Connor and Huston were both one-of-a-kind artists, so it’s a lucky outcome that blending the two results in a movie that’s not much like anything else.

WHAT THE CRITICS SAY:

“Wise Blood is based on Flannery O’Connor’s extraordinary first novel, which infused the conventions of Southern gothic fiction with fiery Catholicism and surrealistic wit. Huston takes to O’Connor’s hothouse style like a gambler to a royal flush. The inevitable results are the very essence of weird.” – Frank Rich, Time Magazine (contemporaneous)

(This movie was nominated for review by future contributor , who said it “seems a must for the list in my opinion.” Suggest a weird movie of your own here.)     

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Capsules

CAPSULE: THE GRASS LABYRINTH (1979)

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Kusa-meikyû

DIRECTED BY: Shuji Terayama

FEATURING: Hiroshi Mikami, Takeshi Wakamatsu, Keiko Niitaka

PLOT: A youth embarks on a quest through his unconscious to uncover a tune that his mother used to sing for him as a child.

Still from The Grass Labyrinth (1979)

COMMENTS: Shuji Terayama, emperor of Japan’s post-war avant-garde scene, made a name for himself mainly through experimental plays and films such as Death in the Country, The Fruits of Passion (starring ), and the controversial Emperor Tomato Ketchup. Grass Labyrinth is a 40 minute work that extravagantly exhibits the author’s tendencies and style while also assuming a relatively restrained approach.

The premise of an investigation into the labyrinth of memory allows for an exercise in oneiric and experimental filmmaking free from the solidity of conventional narrative. Images float in and out of the screen in a liquid stream of consciousness, like half-remembered memories (the other half filled by reconstructions, dreams and hallucinations) in a state of hypnagogia. Recurring motifs and ideas form a subliminal thread that never assumes the form of a clear and rational plot: mother figure, appearing in an Oedipal context (already suggested by the film’s premise); open fields; the ocean; and, of course, the melody of the song that our protagonist so desperately seeks, the picture’s main leitmotif.

The search for a lost childhood item (with all its psychological implications) provides the film’s central point of focus, the axis around which all the apparitions dance. The immersion in the confusing (and occasionally terrifying) sea of childhood memories summons a cast of disquieting sights and sounds, specters of all sorts that haunt the boy’s psychic depths. The mother, who at times seems to be conflated with the song itself, is the most prominent vision, but we can’t ignore the contribution of the unnamed woman who inspires contradictory attitudes of attraction and repulsion in the main character, or a troupe of demonic figures that burst into the film in a loud and ritualistic spectacle typical of Terayama’s style.

Grass Labyrinth succeeds in replicating the aura of a striking but badly remembered dream, or a trip down unconscious lane. Like other works by Terayama, it subverts the conventional trappings of cinema in order to provide an experience that couldn’t be communicated otherwise. Standing in between the author’s more experimental short-films and his (relatively) more accessible full-length outings, it works well as an introduction to the overlooked auteur.

WHAT THE CRITICS SAY:

“…a surreal trip of a short film…. It doesn’t take long for Akira’s journey to fall down a rabbit hole of weirdness and the movie quite literally ends in a madhouse.”–Trevor Wells, Geeks