Rattling them off

This is a year-end sort-through of a mixed grab-bag of films I’ve been watching lately.

The high point of recent viewing has been the final two films in my “Crossing Channels” film series at the Clark. Topsy-Turvy (1999) more than held up on second viewing, in my mind confirming Mike Leigh as one of the very best directors working today. This film about Gilbert & Sullivan and the creation of “The Mikado” clicks on so many levels -- in period recreation, in depiction of artistic collaboration and process, in rounded characters and swift storytelling, and finally as musical comedy. At the time it seemed a departure from Leigh’s kitchen sink realism, but now seems a precursor to Vera Drake in its deep-down portrayal of an historical era. (My rating of *9* would fall right in line with its Metacritic score of 90.)

And then there was A Hard Day’s Night (1964) -- amazing how fresh the Beatles still seem; and yet more amazing that their heyday is now forty years past. Richard Lester’s film brilliantly captures the anarchic energy that burst on the scene back then. How could you not come out of this film with a smile on your face and a bounce in your step? As playful as the film is, there is a genuine documentary quality in its depiction of a cultural phenomenon.

In happenstance, I got a good look at the scene onto which the Beatles burst, by catching up with The Entertainer (1960) again after some decades, and it really filled in the gap in British musical hall history between Gilbert & Sullivan and the Beatles. The Entertainer is hardly entertaining but remains powerful, distinguished by its pedigree and its grim authenticity. Set in seedy postwar Brighton and scripted by “last angry man” John Osborne, directed by Tony Richardson, the film reeks of the decline of Empire before the resurgent empire of Pop. Laurence Olivier is Archie Rice, last in a line of song & dance men, odious but understandably so. Joan Plowright plays his daughter (though soon to be his wife in real life), and his sons are Alan Bates and Albert Finney. His father is Roger Livesey (best known as Colonel Blimp and other characters for Powell & Pressburger.) I have to say, I “get” Archie more now than I did as a young man thirty-odd years ago.

The only other film I’ve watched lately that approaches classic status is The Double Life of Veronique (1991). This film is fascinating as Kieslowski’s transition point between Dekalog and Trois Couleurs, but it doesn’t hold up as well as the Polish ten-episode series or the French tri-color. It does boast the sublimely beautiful Irene Jacob in the double role of Polish and French girls named Veronica, and it does weave the Kieslowskian spell of mystery, if not the authentic spirituality he reaches elsewhere, so it is well worth seeing or re-seeing, but less worth trying to make sense of.

Having watched a Peter Bogdanovich documentary on John Ford, I realized there was one of “the Calvary trilogy” I’d never seen, so I TiVo’d Rio Grande (1950) when it appeared on TCM. I plan to do a John Ford series when the Clark has a Frederic Remington exhibition, but this probably won’t make the cut. It’s a sequel to Fort Apache, in that John Wayne plays the same character, aged from Captain to Colonel. For the first of four times, he is paired with Maureen O’Hara, though her red hair does not blaze in b&w the way it will in The Quiet Man. We do get Ford’s macho Irish sentimentality, but more importantly the indelible myths of the American West. What this film really does is take one back to the Fifties when the whole Western mythos loomed so large in the culture, ruling both movies and tv. Robert Altman’s exquisite McCabe & Mrs. Miller (1971) definitively debunked that mythos, and the only remnant on tv is the decidedly post-modern Deadwood, whose down-and-dirty poetic raunch makes Ford’s martial pieties almost laughable.

I watched three more films from Holland, but none will get into my “NL” film series next summer as part of a Berkshire-wide celebration of Dutch culture. What can I say -- those Dutch are way too kinky for my staid audience at the Clark. Paul Verhoeven’s The Fourth Man (1983) is a David-Lynchian mind-bender, about an alcoholic bisexual novelist falling into the clutches of a lusty black-widowish hairdresser hawking Delilah hair care products. Artful and funny at its best, the film finally settles for just plain weird. His Turkish Delight (1973) is still the highest grossing film in the Netherlands ever, but what it amounts to is an X-rated Love Story, wild and crazy love in a miniskirt dying young. Then, by a director who shall remain nameless since it’s no one you’ve heard of or ever will, Godforsaken (2003) comes across as lesser Scorsese with a Dutch accent, as a teenager slides from aspiring major league baseball player to minor league gangster, having fallen under the spell of a stone cold crazy who leads him on a downward spiral. This is rough stuff, that keeps its heart hidden and not on its sleeve, but does have an off-beat fascination.

Go Further (2004) and Who Killed the Electric Car? (2006) are two heart-in-the-right-place arguments that come across as illustrated lectures, rather than demonstrating the searching quality of authentic documentaries. The first follows Woody Harrelson on a bike trip down the west coast, stopping at colleges -- or wherever people will listen -- about organic food and natural living. With the obligatory stop in Oregon for his bus to meet Ken Kesey’s in the field to which it has retired, Woody is here to say that the Sixties never died. I am sympathetic both to him and his message, but the whole deal smacks of celebrity promotion, whatever the cause. The inquest into the electric car presents itself as a trial of the usual suspects -- oil and auto industries, the Bush administration -- and predictably finds them guilty. It’s an exemplary case in many ways, but would have been better with a genuine sense of discovery. There are some great characters and stories here, but only snippets of testimony are advanced. There is, for example, one young woman who had been a GM salesperson for the EV1 and had become so convinced of the worth of what she was selling, that she became an anti-GM activist when the company started recalling all the cars and shredding them. We only piece her story together by the end, after a scattering of assertions and anecdotes, when we see that she is now a spokesperson for Plug In America. That’s of questionable candor, but also questionable art, because her personal journey would clearly engage the viewer’s interest. What we get instead is a random sampling of advocates, again heavy on the celebrities, who tend to come off as greener-than-thou. Still, this is a well-told story that needed to be told.

If you want to know what I mean by “the searching quality of authentic documentaries,” you need look no further than Werner Herzog, who is turning them out at an amazing rate. Grizzly Man was the first to attract widespread interest, but it is definitely worthwhile is go back and catch up with his prolific work over the past decade. I was aware of My Best Fiend (1999), but didn’t seek it out since I was not that interested in Klaus Kinski, but this film is nothing like a celebrity profile, rather a personal exploration of the psyche of a creative madman, in a sense disguised autobiography, as all Herzog’s films are. “Personal journey” may be an overworked phrase, but this is that, in multiple ways. Werner invariably asks us to forego the usual signposts and follow him on faith, and he usually takes us to astounding places.

While studios throw their Oscar-hopefuls into theaters in an end of the year rush, films released earlier in the year have their award chances flogged by DVD releases. I caught up with two presumed crowd-pleasers in the past week. The Devil Wears Prada delivered pretty much as advertised, as an upsized episode of Sex and the City, with the bonus of the ever-reliable Meryl Streep as the imperious fashion arbiter. Whether or not she does add to her record number of nominations with this film, in combination with this year’s Prairie Home Companion she definitely reminds us that she is perennially the “best actress.” The film itself is glossy and well put together. Ann Hathaway demonstrates she can do the Princess Diaries shtick without making one gag; Stanley Tucci is excellent in a supporting role; and Emily Blunt shows that My Summer of Love was no fluke. If you simply look, and decline to think very much, this movie is entertaining to watch. *6-* (MC-62.)

On the other hand, the appeal of Little Miss Sunshine is lost on me. I just don’t get it, don’t find it funny. Maybe in a raucous, appreciative audience, I would have laughed along with the crowd, but on my own I watched in stony silence. The dysfunctional-family-on-a-road-trip shenanigans struck me as weary pranks without reference to truth of character or situation. Some more than competent performers -- Toni Collette, Steve Carell, Greg Kinnear, Alan Alda -- disguised the emptiness of the proceedings. It will be a sad commentary if this film carries the indie banner into the award season. Comparisons to You Can Count on Me are an insult not just to that fine film but to our intelligence. Studio-driven or no, this is a piece of product every bit as much as Prada, one may be glossy and one may be tatty, but both are machine made, rather than crafted by creative individuals. (My grudging *5+* belies the MC score of 80.)

On the third hand, nobody could claim The Puffy Chair is not the product of independent individuals. For better or worse, the Duplass brothers are completely responsible, as well as their parents, who produced and appear in the film. Mark stars in tandem with his girlfriend, Kathryn Aselton, while Jay works the camera, from a script they wrote together, clever in an inarticulate sort of way. Another road trip, but on this one no would-be life lessons are learned. This is an anti-romantic comedy -- we cheer as the couple breaks up before the final clinch. That girl ought to have known she had no future with a guy who addressed her as “dude.” Some gross implausibilities are woven into the ostensibly naturalistic flow of the narrative, but there is much more deadpan reality than L.M.S. can muster. (The MC score of 73 represents the usual affirmative action for indies, but I’m prepared to advance this promising debut a congratulatory *6*.)