oliverkneale

Despite the fact that this film is by George Romero and it's sold as a horror film, _Season of the Witch_ (aka _Jack's Wife_ which is, in my opinion, the better title) isn't really a horror film.

Or, at the very least, it isn't a *straightforward* horror film and anyone going into this expecting Romero's typical gore and suspense will definitely be disappointed. The closest the film comes to typical horror are some wonderfully eerie sequences involving a man in a grotesque satanic-looking rubber mask (exploitatively depicted on some of the older videocassette sleeve covers for the film) trying to break into the main character's house.

What this film amounts to is the story of one woman who finds herself dissatisfied with the daily plod of her existence as a respectable wife in a respectable suburb. She feels herself aging. She's secretly bitter toward her husband and her friends. It's never really clear what she wants exactly because she doesn't seem to know herself, but she does become intrigued by a woman in the neighborhood who claims to a witch. She meets with this woman and, though she's afraid of black magic, she's inspired to explore it on her own. She goes out and buys a book on the subject and some witchcraft paraphernalia and then begins casting spells from her kitchen.

Despite the non-gory subject matter, there are some things in this film that bear the distinctive signature of Romero and his influences. There's a keen visual wit on display, particularly in some scenes involving mirrors. There are some odd hallucinatory dream sequences here that come straight from the more supernatural side of Italian horror (particularly the opening scene). Many of the scenes are ramshackle and crudely staged, but not in an altogether bad way. Rather, they almost recall a documentary. There's genuine tension (but not "horror film" tension). You don't know where scenes are going to go or what the characters are going to do or say next. You never really get inside many of the characters, but they're offbeat and watchable (particularly the young student-teacher, who's into drugs, casual sex, and some pretentious post-late 60's philosophy).

Not everything in this film works. It's badly edited. Much of the acting is weak. However, the film does have an intriguing, almost New Wave, experimental-like cadence. It's rough and full of jagged edges, but, in that respect, it's really no worse than Jean Luc-Godard at his most indulgent. Even more so than _Martin_, this is Romero's "art film". If it were a piece of music instead of a movie it would be slow, discordant and lo-fi.

This is recommended for all Romero admirers to see at least once.

First of all, the director of this film, Mitchell Leisen is one of the most underrated talents of 30's and 40's. He's acquired something of a bad reputation because of pretty vicious remarks made about him by Preston Sturges and Billy Wilder when talking about the films he directed from their scripts in the days before they were allowed to direct their *own* scripts. However, he doesn't deserve the derision. He's made some fluff films, for sure, but he's a consistently entertaining filmmaker who, more often than not, really delivers.

Anyway, Death Takes a Holiday is sort of his "art film" and it has a lot of great things in it. Fredric March's performance as Death is wonderful, the atmosphere is thick, the humor works, the scene setting is smart and romantic, and the opening titles are fun and weird, immediately presenting the film as something that's going to be a little unusual.

The problem with the film lies in Fredric March's romance with Evelyn Venable. The idea of Death falling in love with a human is great, but it's just not convincing here, mostly due to Venabale turning in a wooden performance that almost suggests she might be hypnotized. Also, the dialogue between them, particularly in the closing scene, is melodramatic and pseudo poetic beyond belief. You almost want to laugh at it.

It's a shame this most important aspect of the movie was handled so badly because just about everything else in film is great, particularly the interaction between Fredric March and just about everyone else in film who isn't Evelyn Venable. All of the good stuff just bursts with intruiging ideas.

And for that I would recommend the film to all potential viewers. The film is not without it's problems, but the good stuff is just good enough for me to say that the proverbial glass is definitely half full.

This film, Agnes Varda's loving tribute to both Jacques Demy and to the playful joy of cinema, is a great idea executed with a beguiling sincerity and containing some wonderful moments that make up for it's flaws and that make the film very worth seeing.

Concentrating on Demy's childhood in working class France of the 1940's, the film often doesn't quite go far enough into absorbing us into it's world. It can be sketchy at times. Just about all of the characters other than the young Demy are blurry and weak. The details of the time and place are often sparse in a way that distances. When World War II begins, we would hardly know it if not for a few minor mentions of it as well as a brief, unconvincing moment involving a German soldier wandering his way into the scene of a family gathering. We don't quite get a vivid enough impression of where Demy comes from.

However, all of this doesn't matter during the wonderfully funny, charming scenes of the young Jacques making his first films. The scenes of his working on a stop-motion animated film set in a cardboard city he builds in his basement are particularly witty and fun to watch.

The film also contains some most valuable footage of Demy himself reflecting on the past and, to sometimes charming effect, the film intersperses several clips from his films (The Pied Piper, Lola, Umbrellas of Cherbourg) throughout, highlighting the influence of childhood memories on his later work.

Jacquot is recommended. It makes you want to see again (or see for the first time) the films of Jacques Demy and most anyone who has had their life taken over by cinema will be able to pick out the most innocent, inspiring parts of themselves out of the film's better moments.