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five years later ... Argento and alchemy

... Hopper (1936 - 2010)

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vaginocrática

Pope, and now what?

"S i ever decide to return to that atmosphere will be because they really I feel a strong desire ", Dario Argento commented some years ago, many years, cuestionársele on the possible closure of the-until then hypothetically Mothers trilogy started with Suspiria (Italy, 1977) and continued with Inferno (Italy, 1980). Well, the drive appeared : Mother of Tears (Italy-EU, 2008) we now have as the closure of the delusional and nevertheless fascinating saga on transvestite evil witch (witches, mothers, therefore, that they hold together "conceptual" to the set) in the middle of the contemporary world with tired desire to undo and make further life miserable heroines who go there, Some Like It Hot, in plan skeptical cosmopolitan cities of the first world.

But, "because" but "there is, of creative impulses to whims is less than a letter, and that strong desire which required motivationally Argento seems tied more to an effort to try to strengthen and be faithful to that idea living legend in which he believes to have become (very common in the good old horror filmmakers who survive) that the fact that he found the exact history to close in a logical and worthy of alchemy vaginocrática this cycle.

And is that Mother of tears is, unequivocally, the worst movie of the author. What if you have had a masterpiece? No. But his films less worse despite plot traps suffer from multiple, bizarre situations even in the parameters of gender ( thriller, horror), turns of the screw along the ridiculous, unintentional humor in abundance, Argento knew compensate defects with a huge visual inventiveness, with a stranglehold on key scenes (mostly violent) a decision near flawless perfection in tempo and rhythm, an almost master planning, creating atmospheres and certain expressionism understood grating much to his way but working quite well. Argento's cinema is cinema of moments, rather than movies, and unfortunately there's no room in this time for typical Argento moments.

The manager here unknowingly opened Pandora's box is Asia, the daughter of the filmmaker, and it is she who will walk, run, stumble, cry, for that Open City witch the siege, without ever knowing fully what happens (diegetic and extradiegética). Because the feeling that neither the director himself knows it is installed from the beginning to the end. Argento seems to shoot blindly groping and seems to improvise in each scene as if it had occurred each second before issuing "action." Characters come and go, not black magic, but by an argument that seems to exist. Udo Kier your minutes just to say "present" and remind us in passing that, in effect, this has something to do with the infinitely superior Suspiria and Inferno.

With Mother of Tears of alchemy vaginocrática what Argento has a strong flavor of kidding. Or perhaps the explosion to open laughter from Asia Argento in the end, no logic has been to free?

(Joseph Abril)

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Flashback 13: Losey, Joseph Losey

Shadow of the Vampire

Sometimes I have the impression that Joseph Losey (EU 1909 - Ing 1984) is unjustly forgotten and often. Forgetting of that, shame assumed, often server has also been involved. May be due to the fact that Losey of very large and extensive filmography, held in little more than four decades, very few films, if any, acquired the canonical dimension, the iconic value the passage of time given to the classics. Clarify: I do not mean that his films are without value or interest, they have it and perhaps much more than any of those movies that critics and historians very often attributed to a filmmaker who, in retrospect, it overrated. Even in spite of possible irregularities in its path. But his presence in the film, to be realistic, it was rather quiet. And speaking of discretion when compared to the rest of his generation: Kazan, Huston, Wilder, Hitchcock perhaps.

De Losey, when speaking, usually through The messenger (England, 1971). But The messenger or The go-between (title gave rise to one of the Australian pop bands of the 80 most interesting, incidentally), but is usually remembered as his work summit, is far from being the most interesting, at least for server. Yes, that is a moving and beautiful love story where the difference in class is a drag, as in most personal films Losey, no doubt, of his setting, and action photography (Julie Christie and Alan Bates extraordinary items) are in for good measure, either. But his excessive formal correctness, its academic aestheticism, its decadence protoviscontiano enough away so the best Losey.

soon to say: The Messenger ended so pompous to the teamwork that Losey had established with the playwright Harold Pinter from what was his best work: the very modest but very powerful The servant (England, 1961).

And it The servant has such complexity that, among other things, offers the ease of being seen through the prism of psychological terror, always give the impression of being filmed hand and eye nerve impulse (especially in its second part), even under its obvious staging calculated, controlled to the smallest detail. The servant it is a movie with that modern spirit, bold, very personal film that was emerging in those years in England (the angry young men, that of cinema Free ) signed ironically by an American exile and veteran.

I know that the ideological positions of Losey (avowed communist and therefore exile in England to escape the witch hunt maccarthysta) its most obvious reading is that of class struggle, metaphorically speaking, and a final settling of accounts, a rematch of class. But I've always liked to see the film as an ingenious variant while updating the figure of the vampire. And from the figure of a vampire, here on earth, too earthly, human, close, as Losey and Pinter develop the chronicle of a master-servant relationship, work more or less conventional in the beginning, degraded, perverted to unsuspected land towards the end. Here the "victim" (for their class), or the servant, is actually a potential perpetrator, a serial sociopath who appropriates, as any vampire, of aristocrat's will as it crosses over to vivify the moral degradation that has pushed. In The servant with whom there are no good because empathize that repels both Butler (huge Dirk Bogarde) Machiavellian social climbers, more sinister meaning, as the inevitable pathos of that aristocrat free will.

At the opposite end of the messenger , The servant is a disturbing film in which the dark, literally and symbolically, dramatic and formally, is gradually taking control. Is a Expressionist film, at the wrong time if you will, but expressionist. Expressionists are the games of lights and shadows, outlining the shades that will house taken, intervened. Expressionist compositions are those that tend to distort space and those that return reflections distorting mirrors that fits so obsessively Losey. Expressionist gestures are remarkably low light Bogarde almost spectral. And, finally, is the oppressive atmosphere expressionist, tense, which gives us the director, ultimately pessimistic, as the only possible landscape.

delire Perhaps, but those moments when I thought of Losey via Servant were those moments that I saw some films of Polanski, as many of Fassbinder and, lo and behold, one of Cronenberg (Dead Ringers especially ). No way, ideas of one.

(Joseph Abril)

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The Scorsese "postmodern" Happy end

New from Martin Scorsese has its features of ambiguity. You do not know whether to take it as a (late) "postmodern" and Mannerist style exercise in the manner of vintage sangrona the Coen brothers ( The man who was not there ) or Steven Soderbergh (T have good German ). Or as a thriller as serious as could habérselo taken the production team led by Scorsese to tackle Dennis Lehane's literary material.

As things first: the only explanation that Shutter Island (EU, 2010) abuse of a score emphatic on the verge of a parody of film noir series B, to seek some Kafkaesque atmosphere based on obvious symbolism about madness and take a medium development unabashedly bizarre (the plot that flirts with madness and paranoia, Nazism overshadowing, psychiatrists with more than one suspect in tow, secret scientific experiments, a prison, mental hospital in each corner suggests mysteries, and what you like to add). Suddenly, it gives the feeling that Scorsese has curly lock of pastiche calculated to gloat over the surface reminiscent of a classic film with a plot that does not stop blinking.

As second: hard to do, because Shutter Island, Though technically irreproachable, photographically impeccable, environmentally sound, is the typical movie that advocates a surprise ending that comes to resemantizing all that the script has to carefully and slyly put before our eyes. An ending that is not so surprising because since the arrival of that same pair of detectives (Ruffalo and DiCaprio) to the island madhouse and the whole thing starts to guess. And is that the predictability of the case, because I personally was predictable, contributing resources as apparent Mannerist style exercise features, sabotaging any hint of a revelation.

way: who remembers this master piece eighty pure and simple camp where Lucia Mendez, within their histrionic skills (which were few). the detective did, came to a mental hospital to solve a mystery y. ..? Well, for some strange perversion that I remembered.

(Joseph Abril)