John Binder: 'UFORIA' (1981, 1985)

John Binder's UFOria, a low budget gem made in 1981 but not released until 1985, somehow fell through the cracks of mass consciousness. 

I was lucky enough to see the film many years ago on video, and never forgot it. It hasn't to date been released on DVD or Blu-ray, nor has it been chosen for salvation by the Criterion Collection, but it sticks with me. In fact, rather magically, I was able to see it again recently! 

UFOria makes up in dialogue, good-natured satire and an excellent cast of characters what it lacks in budgeted technical virtuosity. All the actors fit their characters seamlessly, whether they have a lot of lines or just a choice few. These include Cindy "I am gonna be Noah" Williams (Laverne & Shirley), Fred "get the net, boys" Ward (Henry & June), Harry Dean "I believe I'll have a drink" Stanton (Big Love, Twin Peaks: The Return) and Hank "just for playsure" Worden (Twin Peaks).  The whole script is quotable -- I could still remember many of UFOria's juiciest lines years after last watching it. And: the soundtrack is perfectly attuned to the characters. 

Today's Rune: Fertility. 

David Lynch: Mulholland Drive (2001)

David Lynch: Mulholland Drive / Mulholland Dr. (2001). Starring Naomi Watts, Laura Elena Martínez Herring/Harring (Countess von Bismarck-Schönhausen) and Justin Theroux. 

After having seen everything David Lynch at least once, it's easier to go back and reconsider Mulholland Drive.

In short, what a cool, weird film!  Watts is also in Twin Peaks: The Return (2017), and Harring has since enjoyed a strong turn as a lawyer in the FX series The Shield (2006), among other things.  

What is Mulholland Drive?  Are we delving into alternate realities, psychological realms, dreams, feeling-driven memory distortions, alternate state consciousness, hallucinatory experiences, floating through the bardo, a limbo-like state, or a blend of such elements with off-kilter surrealism?  You tell me. The final response will be: "Silencio."

Today's Rune: Possessions. 

Whit Stillman: 'The Last Days of Disco' (1998)

Whit Stillman's The Last Days of Disco (1998) features an ensemble cast that includes Chloë Sevigny and Kate Beckinsale. Set in Manhattan in the early 1980s with a smooth disco soundtrack, this is the other side, away from CBGB, punk and New Wave, none of which are mentioned. There are no Jim Jarmusch street characters anywhere in sight.

Whit Stillman's 1980s trilogy was shot in this order: Metropolitan (1990), Barcelona (1994) and The Last Days of Disco (1998), but the latter sequentially fits in the middle. The Criterion Collection set includes all three of them. Wry stuff.

Today's Rune: Possessions. 

Yasujirō Ozu: 'Tokyo Story' / 東京物語 (1953)

Yasujirō Ozu's Tokyo Story / 東京物語 (1953). This is the kind of movie you could study many times and still pick up new details. It's a masterwork of world cinema, and though I am not a devout believer in rankings and lists, it's worth noting that Tokyo Story has been listed by film directors as the number one film of all time, up to the year 2012. Certainly it's a memorable film.

Tokyo Story provides an effective answer to world wars, Trumpism, the internet "shallows," and ADHD. Tokyo Story is quiet, slow, thoughtful and deep. 

Tokyo Story subtly shows the intricacies of family systems. Three generations are on display, with variations in life station, geography, age and demeanor. There are: one set of parents, four surviving kids (one son, who had been drafted into the Imperial Japanese Army, died in 1945, near the end of the Second World War), one son-in-law, two daughters-in-law, and a couple of grandchildren. Family members have "stories" about each other, and each fit into the system in their own way. There are also friends, mostly old friends, and a neighbor or two. 

Ozu (December 12, 1903-December 12, 1963) uses several distinctive techniques in his craft. One is the low-angle shot, bringing viewers into interior scenes. For transitions, he often shows technology or architecture, exterior (smokestacks, trains, signs, lights, boats) or interior spaces (a room with plenty of traces of human habitation but no people). For plot shifts, he'll jump forward past a milestone event (wedding, funeral) and into ramifications and changes to the status quo. 

The actors: Chishū Ryū (1904-1993), who plays the father, is superb, using facial expression, body language and occasional verbal expressions to maximum impact. Setsuko Hara (1920-2015), in playing widowed daughter-in-law Norika, is delightful, poignant, deep. These two stand out, and yet the rest of the ensemble cast is very believable and forceful, too. 

Lest we forget, Ozu's main screenwriter: Kōgo Noda (1893-1968).

Today's Rune: Joy.  

Evald Schorm: 'Návrat ztraceného syna' / 'Return of the Prodigal Son' (1967)

Evald Schorm's Návrat ztraceného syna / Return of the Prodigal Son (1967). Stars Jana Brejchová (who played Princess Bianca in Karel Zeman's Baron Prášil / The Fabulous Baron Munchausen / The Outrageous Baron Munchausen, 1962) and Jan Kacer.

Jan, a sensitive engineer (and architect?), has tried to commit suicide. The film explores the aftermath of his suicide attempt and its impact at his psychiatric facility and on hearth and home. All of the main characters are restless. Jan's wife Jana retains Jiří (Jiří Menzel, director of Academy Award-winning Closely Watched Trains / Ostře sledované vlaky, 1966) as a paramour in plain sight, while the therapist's wife has a sweet tooth for Jan. 

"There is but one truly serious philosophical problem and that is suicide. Judging whether life is or is not worth living amounts to answering the fundamental question of philosophy." ~ Albert Camus, The Myth of Sisyphus (1942). 

Still from Evald Schorm's Návrat ztraceného syna / Return of the Prodigal Son (1967)

A case of mistaken identity forces Jan to run for his life. This scene reminds me of ones taking place when the tables have been turned, and the oppressors are hunted down by the formerly oppressed. However, Jan is mostly depressed, and now he's come alive -- if only out of a primal response to being pursued by several women with pitchforks. 

The Good Doctor and the Good Wife -- more or less. Kafka meets Jaroslav Hašek. Prague Spring is just around the corner, to be followed by a violent crackdown. 

RIP, Kate Spade (December 24, 1962-June 5, 2018) and Anthony Bourdain (June 25, 1956-June 8, 2018). 

Today's Rune: Breakthrough. 

Jan Němec: 'A Report on the Party and the Guests' (1966)

Jan Němec's O slavnosti a hostech  / A Report on the Party and [the] Guests / The Party and the Guests (1966).  Banned in Czechoslovakia! Director exiled! Such facts make this film all the more compelling. In 2018, brutish leaders are in style again, randomness rules, and all bets are off. In short, this film breathes surrealism with a touch of parable concerning social expectations, management, fear and control. 

A small group of friends are enjoying a picnic in the country. They see a wedding party pass by. Then, a group of men led by an apparent psychopath arrive and make them do absurd things, until a higher up appears and next directs them to a lakeside celebration. However, one of the guests prefers not to stay. He escapes, and is then hunted by a mob while some guests remain at table, putting out candles. 

There's an eerie, unsettling feeling watching this film, the kind you might get reading Flannery O'Connor's "A Good Man Is Hard to Find." Jan Klusák as Rudolf (pictured above) is the most effective actor, projecting volatile menace through buffoonery. He reminds me of the Rip Torn character in Sweet Bird of Youth (1962), an adaption of the Tennessee Williams play, as well as "The Misfit."

Today's Rune: The Self. 

Vittorio De Sica: 'Umberto D.' (1952)

Vittorio De Sica's Umberto D. (1952) focuses on the plight of Umberto Domenico Ferrari (Carlo Battisti, 1882-1977), a pensioner trying to scrape by on his small fixed income. His only real friends are his little dog Filke and Maria (Maria-Pia Casilio), a pregnant housemaid in the building where he rents a room. Human cruelty in the film is personified by the landlady, and indifference is encountered in almost everyone else.

What I like best about Umberto D. is the comparison and contrast between Umberto's need for scrounging money before he's kicked to the curb and the day-to-day rituals maintained of necessity by Maria, even while she's pregnant courtesy of one or another soldier (she's not sure which). One cannot help but sympathize with them both. 

Filke is a pretty clever dog, by the way.  

I earlier posted on Ladri di biciclette / Bicycle Thieves (1948), another Vittorio De Sica masterwork, here. 

As I noted in that post, this film and several others somewhat like it are part of "Italian Neorealism," a group of down-to-earth tales set in the immediate post-war years (and even during the war), lasting from about 1943 until about 1952. Why "Neorealism?" Because it is sort of a sequel to "Social Realism" exemplified in works by Émile Zola (1840-1902) and Maxim Gorky (1868-1936). As conditions improved, the desire to make or see such "blues" films largely tapered off. But they are great works of art and very much wonders to behold.

Today's Rune: Flow. 

Ingmar Bergman: 'Nattvardsgästerna' / 'Winter Light' (1963)

Ingmar Bergman's stark 1963 black and white film Nattvardsgästerna [The Communicants] / Winter Light focuses on faith, belief, lack or loss of faith and non-belief. It serves as a test for the nuclear age: for believers and non-believers alike. What do you, can you believe in?

"Although our intellect always longs for clarity and certainty, our nature often finds uncertainty fascinating." ~ Carl von Clausewitz, On War (1832).

"Everything in war is simple, but the simplest thing is difficult." ~ Ditto.

In Winter Light, everything is simple, but the simplest things are difficult.

Main characters: Tomas Ericsson (Gunnar Björnstrand), pastor of two (or more) contemporary (early 1960s) rural Swedish churches. Märta Lundberg (Ingrid Thulin), substitute teacher, atheist and sometimes paramour of pastor Tomas.  Jonas Persson (Max von Sydow), a spiritually lost fisherman distraught about the possibility of nuclear destruction to the point of suicidal urges. Karin Persson (Gunnel Lindblom), his wife and mother of two young children. Fredrik Blom (Olof Thurnberg), cynical, comical and boozy organist. Algot Frövik (Allan Edwall), sexton, serious thinker and believer, previously disabled in a work accident, foil to Fredrik.  

Winter Light is memorably shot in black and white. Cinematographer, Sven Nykvist. 

Fears that seem as pointed in the 21st century as they were during the Cuban Missile Crisis more than fifty years ago keep Winter Light fresh and to the point: ". . . and that it's only a matter of time before China has atom bombs." Change "China" to fill-in-the-blank. Change "atom bombs" to fill-in-the-blank. Voila! More fear pictures. When the pastor suggests that God is a Spider and we're caught in Its Web and wriggling till Death, one cannot help but shiver. 

The funniest line in the whole movie is delivered by Märta Lundberg, the atheistic substitute teacher: "Another Sunday in the vale of tears." That's Winter Light in a nutshell. I would suggest this only to those with strong heart and mind.

Today's Rune: Partnership.

Věra Chytilová: 'Sedmikrásky' / 'Daisies' (1966)

Věra Chytilová's Sedmikrásky / Daisies (1966): mix colorful Dada, Surrealism, psychedelia, feminism and anarchic freedom vs. staid authoritarian patriarchy, and voila!  

Two years before they sent the tanks in, the Russian overlords didn't like it. Chytilová was banned as moviemaker in Czechoslovakia until the mid-1970s. 

Marie (Ivana Karbanová) and Marie (Jitka Cerhová) at table. 

Marie (Ivana Karbanová) in an artistic setting: her room. A little bit Dada, a little bit Surrealism?

Floating fonts, flying numbers. If it ain't Dada, it won't Do!

Marie and Marie, ignoring both the doorbell and telephonica.

Green apples of Surrealism. We can play chess now, or checkers.  

Věra Chytilová (1929-2014).
Ivana Karbanová (born 1944).
Jitka Cerhová (born 1947).
Nová Vlna (Czech New Wave, 1960s).

Today's Rune: Joy. 

Jim Jarmusch: 'Stranger Than Paradise' (1984)

Jim Jarmusch: Stranger Than Paradise (1984) -- same year as the Coen Brothers' first movie, Blood Simple.

Stranger Than Paradise, made on a shoestring budget, is all verve and imagination, a lovely film. 

There are really only four substantive characters in it, all related by Hungarian blood or American friendship: Willie (John Lurie), his cousin Eva (Eszter Balint), their aunt Lotte (Cecillia Stark) and Willie's pal Eddie (Richard Edson). And one key song: "You Put a Spell on Me" by Screamin' Jay Hawkins. All but Aunt Lotte are in movement -- New York City, Cleveland, Florida. Jarmusch employs fades between scenes, and it's shot entirely in black and white film -- elements that one will not forget. 

Stranger Than Paradise may very well be the "freshest" of all of Jim Jarmusch's films, though Gimme Danger (2016), his recent documentary on Iggy and the Stooges, is "fresh" in its own way. 

Can you dig? I love seeing such perspectives on things, what Russian theorist Viktor Shklovsky (1893-1984) dubbed --  -- one hundred and one years ago -- defamilarization. Seeing ordinary seeming people and things anew, those and that which we've become "used to" -- or tired of -- with "refreshed eyes" -- and a renewed magical sense of possibility.   

Today's Rune: Strength. 

Roberto Rossellini: 'Germania anno zero' / 'Germany Year Zero'

Roberto Rossellini's Germania anno zero / Germany Year Zero / Deutschland im Jahre Null (1948), the third film of his "War Trilogy," centers on an ailing father, a daughter and two sons trying to stay afloat in Berlin soon after the end of the Second World War. Life among the ruins.

The before and after: some of the survivors still believe in Hitler times, but quietly accommodate the occupiers, selling artifacts and black market services to "golly gee" Americans. Most are dazed and living day by day with assigned housing, ration cards, and not enough legal work to go around. The aftermath of war in a defeated country.

The Criterion Edition (verso) of Deutschland im Jahre Null includes plenty of extras. More is remembered through defeat than through victory.

Today's Rune: Breakthrough. 

Roberto Rossellini: 'Paisà" / 'Paisan' (1946)

Roberto Rossellini's Paisà / Paisan (1946), the second of his "War Trilogy," contains six stories set toward the end of the Second World War in Italy, starting from the South and working North.

Pictured above from the second episode is American M.P. Joe (Hylan "Dots" Johnson, 1913-1986) and Italian waif-survivor Pascale (Alfonsino Pasca) in bombed-out Naples. The movie title means "friends" or "countrymen."

Paisà / Paisan is up close and personal, with Germans, Italians, British, and Americans fighting with or against each other, trying to communicate beyond language barriers amid violence or the near aftermath of violence. 

Picking through the devastation of Firenze / Florence, a live battlefield in episode four.  

Episode five of Paisà / Paisan involves the visit to a monastery by a Catholic, a Jewish and a Protestant chaplain, with a bemused mix of appreciation and confusion for hosts and guests.  

The final episode involves the brutality of guerrilla warfare along the River Po, with the Germans still mounting effective resistance. 

Paisà / Paisan: a free-wheeling ensemble and stark reminder that war is a cemetery for those killed and both a nightmare and a cultural exchange for the survivors.

Today's Rune: Protection. 

Roberto Rossellini: 'Roma città aperta' / 'Rome, Open City' (1945)

Roberto Rossellini: Roma città aperta /  Rome, Open City (1945).

"All roads lead to Rome, Open City." -- Jean-Luc Godard (1959).

"In 2013, [Pope] Francis spoke to Rome’s La Repubblica newspaper and expressed his deep feelings for [Rome, Open City,] Roberto Rossellini’s realist war drama, which is a ground-zero account of the city under Nazi siege — and which features a Catholic priest as its main character." -- Source: here.

Rome, Open City has touches of Casablanca and any number of "under siege" tales, but its nearness to real events, shot among real war ruins, gives the film a powerful boost. It's raw.

An iconic image of Pina, played by Anna Magnani (1908-1973), in German-occupied Rome. 

The Criterion Collection version with extra features, part of the Roberto Rossellini War Trilogy box set (2017).  

Aldo Fabrizi (1905-1990) as Don Pietro Pellegrini, a goodly priest who says: "It's not hard to die well. The hard thing is to live well."  And, akin to Pope Francis: "I am a Catholic priest. I believe that those who fight for justice and truth walk in the path of God and the paths of God are infinite."

Today's Rune: Partnership.  

Roberto Rossellini: 'The Flowers of St. Francis' / 'Francesco, giullare di Dio' (1950)

Roberto Rossellini's The Flowers of St. Francis / Francesco, giullare di Dio (1950). Vignettes of the original Franciscans, played by real Franciscan monks, with a medieval feel, beyond normal time, in black and white. This is the kind of little gem of a movie that distinguishes cinema from books as an art form.

Federico Fellini co-wrote the minimalist script, which is more evident in some of the chapters than others. 

San Francesco d'Assisi / Saint Francis of Assisi lived from about 1181 to 1226 A.D. 

The main cook for the early Franciscans was Fra Ginepro / Brother Juniper, who died in 1258 A.D. He was a bit of a "jester." 

Here, Franciscans spread a feeling of peace in the village, near the end of the film. They also redistribute food to the hungry. 

St. Francis and St. Clare at St. Mary of the Angels. Santa Chiara d'Assisi / Saint Clare of Assisi lived from 1194 to 1253 A.D. 

This memorable film provides an alternative to the many human-directed miseries already wrought in the 21st century. The Criterion Collection package includes extra interviews. Isabella Rossellini (born 1952), daughter of Ingrid Bergman and Roberto Rossellini, provides impressive insight in one of them.  

Today's Rune: Partnership. 

Kon Ichikawa: 'The Burmese Harp' / 'Biruma no tategoto' / ビルマの竪琴 (1956)

Kon Ichikawa's The Burmese Harp / Biruma no tategoto / ビルマの竪琴 (1956), based on Michio Takeyama's 1958 novel of the same name.

Set-up: Japanese soldiers are abandoned to their fate in Burma (now Myanmar) near the end of the Second World War. Focus is on one company, led by a captain who had been musically trained in civilian life, and who has his troops sing to boost morale. One of his privates, Mizushima, has taken up playing a Burmese Harp, and seems already otherworldly at the beginning of the film, only to become more so.

The company tries to make its way to a safe zone so they can somehow return to devastated Japan, but are eventually overtaken by British (including Sikh) forces at a Burmese village. 

Though the war is officially over by this time, mortal danger persists. Another detachment of Japanese soldiers refuses to surrender -- death before dishonor. Mizushima is sent to Triangle Mountain to convince them to choose life over death. Will he succeed?

The rest of the film involves Mizushima's becoming a Buddhist monk, choosing to remain in Burma to bury abandoned Japanese war dead (apparently killed in large part by air and artillery attack), combined with the rest of his company, now POWs, trying to figure out whether he's dead or alive, and if the latter, hoping he will return with them to Japan. 

The Burmese Harp is an effective and sad film, distinctive in its long-term philosophical and religious considerations. For example, it's noted that neither the Japanese nor British empires will reign in Burma -- which became independent in 1948, though it still suffers ethnic turmoil in the 21st century. 

Kon Ichikawa (1915-2008) directed, but he worked in close collaboration with Natto Wada (1920-1983), the script writer, who also happened to be his spouse. Ichikawa did a color film remake of The Burmese Harp in 1985, but I haven't seen it yet.

Today's Rune: Joy. 

Masahiro Shinoda: 'Pale Flower' / 'Kawaita hana' / 乾いた花 (1964)

Masahiro Shinoda's Pale Flower / Kawaita hana / 乾いた花 (1964). 

Whereas Seijun Suzuki's 1964 Gate of Flesh / Nikutai no mon / 肉体の門  is set in the immediate wake of the Second World War and shot in garish colors, Shinoda's 1964 film is set in the early 1960s and shot in black and white. Japan has begun to rebuild and we can recognize it as contemporary modern. But the code of gangsters (yakuza) is key to both films, and to both periods in Japanese society. So is the underground scene in general -- dangerous and alluring. 

'“There was a strong influence of [Charles] Baudelaire’s Fleurs du mal throughout this film,” director Masahiro Shinoda would later remember of his 1964 squid-ink noir Pale Flower.'" -- Chuck Stephens, "Pale Flower: Loser Take All" (2011), The Criterion Collection. Link here.

"Bewitchingly shot and edited . . ." The Criterion Collection has special features, all nifty. 

Who will pay the Piper? But first, who is the Piper? 

"A sumptuous sonnet to unrequited amour fou, Pale Flower remains Shinoda’s most enduring creation." -- Chuck Stephens, "Pale Flower: Loser Take All" (2011), The Criterion Collection. 

Today's Rune: Strength.