Analysis of Films by Luis Bunuel, Vittorio De Sica, and Garry Oldman - Movie Review Example

Screen Diary 2006 Un Chien Andalou (1929) by Luis Bunuel Un Chien Andalou (An Andalusian Dog) was Luis Bunuel’s first film, one that he scripted along with the surrealist painter, Salvador Dali. Both Bunuel and Dali were young men then and wanted to break away from the avant-garde genre of artistic films that had become popular with the French bourgeois society. The main trait of surrealism, a genre that painters like Dali continued to use in their paintings even later, was its deliberate attempt to shock viewers with gory images that were nonetheless borrowed from reality. Bunuel wanted to do just that in this film. However, despite its ostensible intention of exposing the bourgeois attitudes and shocking them with explicit visions of their lives, the film became a success with the people, particularly in France, who apparently lapped up anything that was novel, even if gruesome and unpleasant. The film broke away from the narrative mould and the misc-en-scene was constructed as a series of shocking imageries. The surreal dream-like sequences, which cut across time and space, in this 17-minute film, seem to be snippets of images that are open to interpretations and are not necessarily interrelated. Time is dislocated through the use of title cards displaying a particular period, the images that would follow the card not necessarily have any direct relation with the period though, and space is dislocated with the use of two or more locations within the same setting. The opening scene is announced with the title “Once Upon a Time” along with the romantic music in the background, giving the viewer the impression of a fairy tale but the sequence that follows is particularly ghastly. A proletarian man – played by Bunuel himself – perhaps a barber, is in the process of sharpening his razor while puffing a cigarette. He checks the sharpness of the razor by cutting his fingernails with it. Then, he walks out to the balcony and watches the full moon about to be bisected by the cloud. A woman suddenly appears and the man forces open her eyes. As the clouds cuts across the moon, the man slashes the woman’s eye with the razor. The images that follow are equally horrifying. For example, ants crawling out of a man’s palms (an allusion to the French metaphor for “itching to kill”), a man dragging a pair of pianos that have two dead donkeys (a sight that Bunuel had experienced in suburbs where dead donkeys would be strewn on the roads while people passed by unmoved) on top towards the woman (perhaps the one whom the man is itching to kill), with two stone tablets and two priests following (almost like Jesus carrying his cross for the sin of humanity, hinting at Bunuel’s early raising in Christianity against which, particularly against the anti-pleasure crusades, he would always rebel in his later films), sexual act of a man groping at a female nude body (example of the unfeeling sexuality of bourgeois society) and a man poking at a severed hand with his walking stick while the crowd gathered around watches passively. In all the images, the black clouds move to and fro on the dark sky behind. The scenes can be interpreted as the viewer wishes as may be the title of the film, which too does not have any particular implication. Bicycle Thieves (1948) by Vittorio De Sica Set against the post-war poverty in Rome, this 90-minute film is perhaps the most famous film in the genre of neo-realism that grew in Italy after the war, with the prominence of the same genre in contemporary Italian literature. Neo-realist films aimed to portray life as it is on celluloid by filming in natural light and on real locations with non-professional cast and adopting story-lines that reflected the lives of common men. Italian neo-realist film makers were typically leftist intellectuals who opposed vehemently the Nazis as well as Mussolini and rejected the pre-war escapist film genre. Working on shoestring budgets, the films were motivated by the urge to create a brand of revolutionary cinema. De Sica, a matinee idol in Italy in the 1930s became a trendsetter. In Bicycle Thieves, the poor unemployed Antonio ultimately finds a job – that of posting images of the glamorous Rita Hayworth in Gilda on city walls. But the condition of the job is that he should have his own mode of transportation. Antonio’s wife sells the household linen so that he can buy his bicycle. On the first day of his job, as he climbed the ladder to paste his poster, a man steals his bicycle. And then begins Antonio’s, and his ten-year old son Pablo’s, frantic daylong search for the bicycle, all over the city including the stolen goods’ flea market. The duo’s mission – largely unsuccessful – are particularly heartbreaking as the son, exhausted, pauses behind a Roman wall with his back to the camera apparently to relieve himself but on Antonio’s call returns on the chase that takes them through the bordello where unattractive whores are busy at the breakfast table. Finally, by dawn, Antonio grows desperate and attempts at stealing a bicycle from a stand. He is caught red-handed in action and is almost arrested when Pablo, with his tearful eyes, rescue his father by pleading with the crowd who takes pity on him. The final shot is a poignant one with Antonio and Pablo walking hand in hand towards home, with their backs to the camera. Nil By Mouth (1997) by Garry Oldman This film, set in South London’s working class district is semi-autobiographical and dedicated to the memory of Oldman’s father. It is the story of a dysfunctional poor family trying to make two ends meet through odd jobs and shady deals. Raymond lives with his wife, Valery, their daughter and Valery’s brother, Billy. Valery’s mother, Janet and grandmother, Kath live elsewhere. Raymond, a confirmed alcoholic, is particularly violent with Billy and Valery. Raymond finally kicks out Billy, a drug addict. Although Raymond does not hit his daughter, he leaves a psychological scar on her, as she is witness to the frequent violence over her mother. Despite the drunken brawls, fights and neglect, the family sticks together. Valery is resolute and despite the poverty, is determined to make her life a better one. The film’s details are resolutely realistic. The setting gives the claustrophobic impression of South London – metal doors and hallways, dark, littered neighbourhood, the pubs that the audience almost finds tangibly stinking of beer, the gloom of the continuous rains. The drug abusers are portrayed in a harsh manner, not diluted by aesthetic charm. There are horribly violent sequences of spouse abuse, for instance. However, abusers are not demonised nor are the victims deified. The film progresses slowly, panning on Raymond and his chums, all victims of poverty and the depressive environment they live in. The title of the film is meaningful – poverty forces the men lash out curses by the mouth. The fuzziness of the subject of the film, made by the first time director, Oldman, is highlighted by the technology – it is blown up from 16mm film stock. The 400 Blows (1959) by François Truffaut The 400 Blows (Les Quatre cent coup) refers to raising hell as it means in French. The 14-year old Antoine Doinel lives with his mother and stepfather in a tiny apartment in Paris. His mother has a lover and Antoine spots them kissing on the road one day. She returns late after work every evening and Antoine has to make way for her to come in through the narrow hallway where he has to spread out his folding bed to sleep the night. His stepfather is slightly more caring towards him than his mother, who tries to make amends by being strict with him and occasionally treating him with softness. He skips school often and goes around with a classmate, who is from a rich, stable family and is his comrade in all his exploits. He accidentally gets into trouble often, like when he tries to write an essay inspired by Balzac, only to be accused by the teacher of plagiarism or when the boys are passing around a sexy pin-up and the teacher spots it just when it reaches Antoine’s desk. Antoine steals a typewriter from his father’s office and when he finds he cannot handle it, tries to return it, he gets caught. He is thrown out of school and put in a reformatory. He escapes and ends up at the North Sea. In the last shot of the film (in an optical zoom on a freeze frame, a style copied by many directors later), Antoine turns back from the sea and looks straight into the camera in a confused and sad manner with his innocence lost to him. Typical of Truffaut’s works, this film has a straight narrative that is told in a matter of fact manner. Even when the police psychiatrist (who is hidden from the camera) questions Antoine, he looks straight at him even when he is bodily fidgeting while talking explicitly about his life and his apparently delinquent behaviour. There are no heroes or villains in the film. Rather, it is a coming-of-age story of young Antoine, in a society that is struggling to find bits of happiness in an otherwise dreary existence. Truffaut’s films are the archetype of New Wave cinema of the 1950s that, contemporary to Italian neo-realists, revolted against the studio system of post-war French cinema. It is bereft of elaborate studio sets and scenes are enacted with minimum dialogues in tiny apartment rooms, streets and classrooms. The simplicity through which ordinary people speaks the ordinary language and live through ordinary lives became the hallmark of New Wave cinema. The title of the film is in fact an anti-climax as nothing really exceptional – or hell raising – happens. This film is also partly autobiographical as he spent his childhood in deep anxieties, fugitive tendencies and rebellion. Parts of these traits, as the inquisitiveness towards sexuality, are visible through Antoine’s eyes. Festen (1998) by Thomas Vinterberg The Danish director Thomas Vinterberg made this film after he signed a pact called the Dogme 95 with some other directors from his country, rejecting the Hollywood style of special effects. These directors work with handheld cameras, location shooting, natural lighting and no computer-aided imaging. Besides, the directors agreed that they would adopt film making as a means for the social rendering of stories. Technically, it is similar to the neo-realist films, albeit with better quality of camera and of course in colour. However, although the subject matter of this film has a social message, it is not necessarily leftist like the neo-realists. Professionals play the cast in these films, again unlike in neo-realist films, which were driven by fund shortage rather than a deliberate attempt to evolve a different technology like the Dogme 95. The film is set during the celebration (festen) weekend of the 60th birthday of Helge at his country hotel where his family gathers. His youngest son, Michael arrives with his wife, Mette, and children although he has not been invited because of his usual drunken and unruly behaviour. His eldest daughter, the wandering-eyed Helene, and his eldest son, Christian who lives in Paris, have also come. This is the first time they are at the hotel since the funeral of Christian’s twin sister, Linda, who committed suicide here. Although the film begins almost like a video recording of the family getting together, the drama gathers momentum gradually – as Helge coaxes Christian to return from Paris and take over the running of the hotel, Helene tries to “get warmer” and search for something in the room that Linda died in and actually find a note from her, Michael argues with Mette and then make love feverishly in another room and Christian flirts with the waitress. At the after-dinner speeches, Christian, revealing that when they were children, Helge repeatedly raped him and Linda on the sofa and then bathed, raises a toast to their father for his cleanliness and leaves. Helge says he does not remember such incidents and Kim, the chef who is also Christian’s childhood friend persuades him to return. Christian returns to raise another toast to their father, “the man who killed Linda”. A series of frenetic activities follow, with Kim hiding the guests’ car keys, Christian tied up in the woods to prevent him from returning to the hotel and finally Helene reading Linda’s note that said she was contemplating suicide because of her dreams that her father was raping her again. By the end of the night, the family disintegrates but by breakfast next morning, they recompose with better knowledge about each other. However, the family has rejected Helge. It is a very disturbing film about a dysfunctional family, intensity of hatred for each other and the final reckoning of truth. Like a typical Dogme film, it makes no presumption of what the audience will like and characters like Christian, who initially appear meek and submissive, is eventually emboldened to reveal his years of pain and suffering. The Return (2003) by Andrei Zvyagistsev This film can be seen as a coming-of-age one, a family drama or a suspense thriller. It is seen from the point of two brothers, Vanya and Andrey, whose father returns after 10 years of apparently serving in the army. The boys, especially the younger Vanya, are not really convinced that he is really their father. Yet, they go with the man on a trip, first to an island and then to a lake. In the process, they learn adult life. At one level, the overtly family drama is the story of two brothers’ coming of age with events over a week. At the other level, the father represents the strong Communist USSR that had to perish, while the two brothers portray two sides of the post-USSR Russia – one that accepted domination by the strong father and the other who rebelled and forced democracy. There are biblical undertones, with the narrative beginning on a Sunday and ending on Saturday. The making of the film is influenced more by Hollywood than the masters of Russian cinema. The setting is a middle-class suburb where the two boys live with their single mother. As we see images of the boys hurling themselves over high sea waves, the father returns almost in a mythic manner and demands that the boys come away with him. One of the boys rebels while the other is more accepting. The film seems almost like an attempt to make a Russian film in the Hollywood soap opera style. The ending of the film however is dramatic, with a series of black and white photographs of the characters. The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou (2004) by Wes Anderson In this film, Steve Zissou, who was earlier an oceanographer and is now an underwater filmmaker whose life is not easy. His friend, Esteben, has been eaten up - presumably by a Jaguar shark – and Steve has made a documentary film on this theme. The film, however, flops and he decides to make a sequel to the film, one on the non-existent Jaguar Shark. He embarks on the trip, along with Ned, who claims to be Steve’s son, Jane, a pregnant reporter doing a story on Steve and attracted towards Ned, an eccentric German, a Portuguese weapon-expert and a host of others. Steve suspects his wife is making up with her former husband while Jane attracts him. The journey continues with a series of curious incidents, relationships and entanglements. The troupe is faced with kidnappings, pirates and bankruptcy. The film is interestingly made, with colourful underwater shots, strange situations and innovative montage. It is a typical Hollywood adventure film with amusing drama interwoven. Shaft (1971) by Gordon Sparks Snr. The film, based on Ernest Tidyman’s 1971 novel of the same name, is a model for blaxploitation (black exploitation) genre that became popular in American cinema in the 1970s and 1980s. These were undoubtedly very turbulent times for the black population who were given the status of second-class citizens despite emancipation happening decades ago. While the previous mainstream American cinema largely ignored the black population, Gordon Sparks was the first black American filmmaker who portrayed the black life of Harlem closely. A black detective, John Shaft, travels through Harlem and among the Italian mafia to find the daughter of a black mobster. The film is full of black stereotypes – black junkies, black activists and black gangsters – but Shaft represents the epitome of the black macho – cool, sexy, confident with a Afro centric viewpoint. His arrogance is evident when, replying to the police detective’s “you’re not so black” comment, he retorts, “you ain’t so white either”. Meshes of the Afternoon (1943) by Maya Deren Directed in collaboration with Alexander Hammid, whom she married later, Meshes in the Afternoon is the most famous film by experimental film maker, Maya Deren (originally called Eleanor Deren – she changed herself to Maya, which in Buddhism means illusion, in Sanskrit mother and in Greek mythology the messenger from the Gods). The title card of the film, produced during the unstable times of the war, mentions that it is “Made in Hollywood”. The film is set in Los Angeles but is not a typical Hollywood film. Instead, it reflects the nightmares in the lives of people who are involved in the dream factory of Hollywood. Both Deren and Hammid were European émigrés and their sense of alienation is clear through the film. Deren plays the central character herself. There is huge distrust even between lovers who turn killers in the presence of a hooded character, who seems to have a face that reflects the identity of the person looking. The domestic scene is absolutely inactive, with the phone off the hook, record player moving soundlessly, the knife stopping in action of slicing the bread. There is a Gothic element to the setting giving an uncanny and queer feeling about the claustrophobic life of the woman in the house. The narrative of the paranoia of psychodrama is cyclical and the poetic dreamlike sequences breaks down the linear story-telling narrative of Hollywood. The title depicts the tying down of women in domesticity of the afternoons. The film is shot as silent with no dialogue between the characters. Even when a record player is shown to be in motion, there is no sound emerging. Instead, the soundtrack has drumbeats synchronized to the actions. For example, the drumbeats amplify the steps that the character takes along the path or up the stairway. The rhythmic montage and the soundtrack are perfectly synchronized. The editing is also highly experimental with frequent cuts to highlight actions on the beach, soil, grass or concrete. Similarly, the cinematography is used as a tool to highlight the dreamlike episodes that eventually turn into nightmares. The hooded figure is always out of range and the viewers’ attempt to recognize it is futile. The film that has a close resemblance to Bunuel’s Un Chien Andalou, in its nightmarish quality, it is not really in the surrealistic genre. The characters are identifiable even when found confusing. The images are cyclical and not necessarily isolated like Bunuel’s film. All About My Mother (1999) by Pedro Almodovar All About My Mother is not the typical Almadovar and his viewing of sex and relationships through the camera. Manuela, a single mother loses her only son, Esteban, right in from of her eyes on his 17th birthday as he goes to get his favourite actress’s autograph and gets run over. Manuela sets for Barcelona – a trip she is making after 18 years - to meet the boy’s father, a transvestite called Lola who is unaware of Esteben’s existence. At Barcelona, she first meets her friend, Agrado, also a transvestite, Rosa, a nun on her way to El Salvador, takes up an assignment as a personal assistant to the actress, Huma, whose autograph Esteben had gone for. Manuela helps Huma in her relationship with her drug-addict co-star and lesbian lover and takes care of Rosa when she too gets pregnant by Lola. Finally, Manuela meets Lola, who is now HIV infected. The film opens with Esteban, already showing signs of talent as a writer, writing in his journal that he wishes that his mother tells him about his past and about his father whom he has never met. He tells her of his wish and Manuela promises to tell him soon but tragedy strikes before she can. The entire journey follows over Manuela’s attempt to reconstruct Esteban’s past and what has happened to the characters from then over the years. The film is a melodramatic portrayal of a grieving mother trying to come to terms with her son’s death by exploring her as well as her son’s lost past. In the process, she comes up with complications with others’ lives and finds reasons to live beyond her own sorrow. As the title suggests, the film is about the relationship between a mother and her children. Through the film, Manuela becomes a mother thrice – first to her biological son, Esteben, then to Rosa whom she takes care of when she is pregnant and finally to Rosa’s baby whom she takes over as Rosa too is HIV infected. Although the film is full of bizarre characters of transvestites fathering children, nuns bearing children despite being AIDS-infected and actors in lesbian relationships, Almadovar stresses on the humane relationships rather than their eccentricities. Typical of the director, there are the bright colours and striking images, like the train passing through the tunnel and Manuela standing in front of a giant image of Huma’s. 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