Kammurabi

What a great, flowing, virtuoso bit of filmmaking. Effortless interlocking scenes moving one to the next. One character's bit of drama bleeds seamlessly into another. This interlocking style is not originated in this film but many of the more recent films have popularized something that this film did so well 50 years before. There is an apparent joyous enthusiasm with which this film is made and, while the subject matter is at times very intense and not always satisfying, there is an infectious energy on display by a doubtlessly talented director.

Crash, Pulp Fiction and other similar recent films owe a bit of a debt to Everything Goes Wrong and fans of those should take particular interest in this one.

I went into it with no expectations as I knew nearly zero about it and at the time I am posting this review only 16 people have even voted for it. A criminally under-appreciated film and it made an immediate impression on me which has continued to grow to admiration. After seeing Tokyo Drifter, Branded to Kill, Take Aim at the Police Van, Everything Goes Wrong is my favorite film by Seijun Suzuki so far.

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When I think of perfection in the art of motion pictures I can only come to three examples. Red Beard by Kurosawa, City Lights by Chaplin and Haxan.

No film truly captures the essence of humanity as well as Haxan. Who we are as a species and how that can be communicated on screen. And when you add the production values (for the time) and the damn surreal, almost magical nature of the film, I come to a conclusion that I've never really seen a better movie than this. I am not talking about how witty a conversation can be between two actors on screen because obviously Haxan is easily beaten in this area....but for the art of the motion picture, I can't think of anything better.

10 out of 10. I watch this annually on Halloween and it rises in my estimation each year. Continued upward progress is extremely rare in the entertainment industry as a whole. This should be required viewing for all.

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This is a stunning glimpse of the conditions the women of Rosenhaus experienced up until the end of the war. Nazi doctors perform numerous ghastly experiments on the unfortunate female prisoners in this realistic dramatization.

The film is made more effective through the amazingly advanced color photography (considering this is 1945).

I visited the Rosenhaus camp on a recent trip to Europe and was stunned to see there are still visible bloodstains on the floor where the woman was shot with a chemical bullet.

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