’Tis the season (12/29/98)
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Life Is Beautiful. [Roberto Benigni, 1997.]
Having formed an imperfect impression of the intentions of the Italian comic auteur Roberto Benigni before the fact, I did not know precisely what to expect of this film until I saw it: a comedy about the death camps?
Harpo’s List? But Mr. Benigni’s aim is far subtler: to humanize an experience of such monstrous proportions that it seems to lie beyond the reach of comedy and tragedy alike by depicting the efforts of a gifted clown to protect his child from a realization of the meaning of their incarceration; the magnitude of the crime of the Nazis is intimated [and it can only be intimated, it cannot be grasped as a whole] by the superhuman energy and ingenuity he must expend to achieve even this small triumph over the gigantic machinery of evil. Though Benigni does demonstrate a rare talent for physical comedy, his powers are employed in the service of a grim story [and one that would have been cheapened by a happy ending]; this is emphatically not that feelgood movie about the Holocaust one would have dreaded had a Hollywood studio taken the pitch and attached Jim Carrey to the project. — One of the best pictures of the year, or the decade for that matter [winner already of a prize at Cannes]; don’t miss it.
Careful. [Guy Maddin, 1991.]
The Canadian cult director dresses up his cast like the Student of Prague and dresses down his filmstock like overexposed SuperEight, but despite stage-interior mountain settings, ghostly visitations, cottages out of Hansel and Gretel, and not a little gratuitous Oedipal conflict, he ends up with something that owes less to German Expressionism than to Bad Acid. — Try
Nosferatu or
Caligari instead; they’re relatively easy to find. [I don’t know about good acid.]
Babe: Pig In The City. [George Miller, 1998.]
After an series of misfortunes leave his owner at the mercy of wicked mortgage bankers, the celebrated talking pig sets off on a journey to save the farm and ends up lost instead in the cruel Metropolis [an ingenious surreal composite of Venice [Italy], Venice [California], Hollywood, Rio, New York, Paris, and San Francisco] among pocketpicking apes, mad dogs, animalhating operalovers, and evil scientists in need of laboratory specimens. All turns out eventually for the best, but not without the kind of lengthy exploration of the fears of childhood that made all the great fairytales seem too dark for the eyes of their audience. — Directed [mirabile dictu] by the great action auteur George Miller; and, indeed, the final shootout at the society dinner owes as much to
Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome as to the Marx Brothers; if you try to picture Margaret Dumont taking the place of Tina Turner, you won’t be far off. — Really excellent [I’m not kidding]; check this out.
James Ellroy, Demon Dog Of American Crime Fiction. [Reinhard Jud, 1993.]
A guided tour of Los Angeles conducted by the remarkable Mr. Ellroy [author of
White Jazz,
The Big Nowhere,
L.A. Confidential, etc.], whose personal star map is dotted with lurid crime scenes out of the dark forgotten past of the City of Angels. A striking specimen of documentary; but why did a German have to come to the home of the film industry to make it?
Ilsa, The Wicked Warden. [Jess Franco, 1978.]
A sequel to the cult quasiclassics
Ilsa, She-Wolf of the SS,
Ilsa, Harem Keeper of the Oil Sheiks,
Ilsa, Tigress of Siberia,
Ilsa, Offensive Coordinator of the Cornhuskers, etc., etc.: leatherclad sadist Dyanne Thorne experiments upon the inmates of a mental institution in the South American jungle. Memorable moments include the boss inmate running out of toilet paper and commanding the New Cookie to wipe her with her tongue and the remarkable bathtub scene of Ms. Thorne, who somehow succeeds in getting both floats in the water at the same time. [I don’t think this could be done in my tub.] Illogical, tepidly plotted, weak in characterization, and burdened with unnecessary scatological detail; suggesting the next sequel,
Ilsa, Republican Counsel to the Judiciary Committee.
____________Holiday cheer (12/5/98)
