The Element of Crime (Forbrydelsens Element) (1984)

 

The Element of Crime

In the Danish edition of “1001 Movies You Must See Before You Die”, the local editors have added Lars von Trier first feature movie, “The Element of Crime”. I am not a fan of his, but at least it saves me from reserving a slot for a Danish off-List entry in a year otherwise so bountiful.

In an undefined future or past, a police detective, Fisher (Michael Elphick) is undergoing hypnosis to go through his latest case. Fisher is based in Cairo, but returns to “Europe” to solve a case known as the “Lotto murderer” case. It is never entirely clear on what basis he is working, but he seems to be in competition with a policeman called Kramer (Jerold Wells) and being tutored by his old master, Osborne (Esmond Knight), who devised a method called “The Element of Crime”, through which the detective must embrace the personality of the criminal to fully understand and find the perpetrator.

Fisher finds the trailing log of the suspected murderer, Harry Grey, and embark on a chase together with a prostitute, Kim (Meme Lai), with whom Grey has a child.

Here is the thing: Nothing in this movie makes the slightest sense.

The plot is a neo-noir detective story, while the imagery is acid-yellow pictures of broken, wet sets. The two are barely connecting and, more often than not, entirely disconnected. Most of the dialogue is narration on top of the scenes (presumably from the hypnosis), but even the spoke dialogue is strange, abrupt and disconnected. Attempts to follow the plotline is constantly sabotaged by strange cuts, out of the blue events or imagery totally at odds with the narration.

It is impossible to place the story. Is it past or future? Is it a post-apocalyptic world or is it the wreckage of Fisher’s mind seen though hypnosis? The place is referred to as Europe, place names are German, people’s names are English and so is the spoken language. All the while, I get the impression none of this actually matters.

Lars von Trier says quite clearly in the extra material that this is a movie of fascinating pictures with a story on top for those who requires a plot. This is incidentally also my impression. Von Trier concocted some imagery that looks like a mix of “Stalker”, “Alphaville” and “Last Year in Marienbad” and needed an excuse of a story to present those images. So, he is having a lot of fun making some freakish imagery for us to enjoy, except the pictures are so horribly ugly that it is just depressive. But then again, that stuff is high art.

I cannot say I enjoyed this movie. It feels amateurish because of the disconnects and I think by now I hate the colour yellow in a movie. I knew up front that Lars von Trier is not my thing, but I was curious as to where he started. Now I know and somehow this explains a lot.

An interesting piece of trivia: Meme Lai, easily the best part of the movie, had a career in Italian cannibal movies (turns out to be a thing!). “The Element of Crime” was her last movie. After this she became a policewoman in Brittain. I will let that stand for a moment.

 

This is Spinal Tap (1984)

 

This is Spinal Tap

Everything starts somewhere and for mockumentaries it likely happened with “This is Spinal Tap”. I am quite certain that the verité comedy had already been in place for some time (“Real Life” from 1979 comes to mind), but the format of presenting a movie as a documentary, while actually making fun of the subject is often attributed to “This is Spinal Tap”.

We are introduced to the “filmmaker” Martin Di Bergi (Rob Reiner himself, the actual director of this movie), who tells us that he is a long-time fan of the band and wants to make a concert movie based on their tour of the United States. As the filmmaker, he then proceeds by showing up here and there in the movie, either to comment or to interfere with the tour.

Of the band we particularly follow lead singer David St. Hubbins (Michael McKean), guitarist Nigel Tufnel (Christopher Guest) and bassist Derek Smalls (Harry Shearer) with keyboardist Viv Savage (David Kaff) and drummer Mick Shrimpton (R.J. Parnell) more in the background. The band started out as a very mellow flower-power band in the sixties, but then turned to heavy metal or at least the glam-rock version of it, now having the reputation of being the loudest band in Brittain (cranking volume up to 11!). It is understood that they used to be a really big name but is having less success of late.

The American tour is supposed to be a promotion tour of the new album “Smell the Glove”, but there are problems right from the outset as the American record label does not want to print the cover, which is considered sexist (which, from the description of it, is an understatement). The manager of the band, Ian Faith (Tony Hendra), desperately trying to keep it all together, lands a compromise with an all-black cover that satisfy no-one.

The tour is, to say the least, chaotic. Many venues are cancelled or moved to far more humble locations. We see the band interact, both with themselves and the press, and in both cases we get a lot of the tropes on moronic rock musicians. There are some, but sadly few, clips of them actually playing at concerts. Those parts are great, though, if you listen to the lyrics. Those lyrics are simply amazing.

Midway through the tour David’s girlfriend Jeanine (June Chadwick) shows up. She quickly sets herself up as a band member off stage and challenges Ian to his great chagrin. Her ideas are even more moronic than the band’s own and the whole thing explodes with both Ian and Nigel walking out on the band.

The entire movie is a joke, of course. It is a parody of the touring rock band, mocking all the tropes on those. The band members are more air-headed than most, the lyrics totally out there, the attitudes in place, and of course of money-people who are only there when things are going well.

The interesting thing is that all this is played for real. Everybody stays in character and take themselves seriously. They are over the top, but nobody plays over the top. Add to this that all the dialogue is improvised, and you get this real documentary feel to the movie. A documentary of a crazy, but quite real world. There are times where it gets totally absurd as with the pod on stage that does not open, trapping Derek inside or the 18-inch version of Stonehenge on stage with dancing leprechauns. But it is dealt with by the band as serious incidents, crazy, but real and so it works (not to mention the Jazz-Odyssey incident).

It is this balance of keeping the craziness real that is the key to “This is Spinal Tap”. Had this just been about making fun of rock musicians, this would not have been half as funny. As it is, the verité element is so well developed that we believe in the band even though they are stupider than toothpaste. As it happens, I read that several famous musicians are themselves fans of the movie, notably Sting, because this is the story of their experience, and they can see the fun of it.

Although hours and hours of material was shot, it is cooked down to only  82 minutes and I think that was a wise choice. There are simply limits to how long you can draw out a joke. As it is, I was having a lot of fun watching this one, but I am not certain it would have lasted another hour.

Researching this, I looked up the story of Christopher Guest. It is quite amazing. I want to watch a movie about him, his life and family.

 

A Nightmare on Elm Street (1984)

 

A Nightmare on Elm Street

In 1984, I was eleven years old. Horror movies were way to scary for me and even “Ghostbusters” crossed that line. Needless to say, a movie like “A Nightmare on Elm Street” was way outside what I was going to watch at the time. It was, however, a movie that was impossible to avoid and the posters as well as the street-talk was enough to freak me out. For this reason, I watched it later than most people, which is likely a good thing but today I consider it a true classic, not only for its impact on popular culture but for its inherent qualities.

The high school students Tina (Amanda Wyss), Nancy (Heather Langenkamp), Glen (Johnny Depp) and Rod (Nick Corri) have scary dreams of a creepy man with a burnt face and knives on his fingers, chasing them. Tina is so scared of this she is asking her friends over at night, including her boyfriend, Rod. During the night her dream gets really bad when the creepy guy catches her and cuts her up. While it is happening in her dream, the effect is very real as she is tossed and turned around the bedroom with blood spraying everywhere and Rod starring in shock as his girlfriend is getting torn apart.

Obviously, Rod is being charged with the murder, but Nancy, daughter of the police chief, is convinced it was not Rod, but the creepy guy because he is trying to do the same thing to her. Every time she doses off, he is there, and she only barely avoids getting chopped up herself. It is all she can do to stay awake, and it does not help that nobody believes her. Not her mother, nor the police or even Glen although he appears to have similar dreams.

Eventually we learn that the creepy guy is a Freddy Krueger (Robert Englund), a serial child murderer whom the parents had trapped and burned to cinders. Now he is back in supernatural form to take his revenge on their children.

The scenario of teenagers chased by demons is old like in really really old and both “The Texas Chainsaw Massacre” and “Halloween” has walked this ground. Yet, it feels as if many of the tropes of this genre either originates or were perfected by “A Nightmare on Elm Street”. What they are up against is evil with demonic powers, nobody, certainly not the adults believe them and only by facing the fear (i.e. to grow up) can they overcome the danger.

Freddy Krueger is the stuff of legends, both from his gruesome appearance and through his omnipotency. Residing in the dreamworld, there is no physical laws restricting him, but what makes him really scary is that he transcends the dreamworld into reality. We all have had scary dreams and what is it we tell ourselves when we wake up? Phew, this was only a dream. But what if it is not only a dream? What if the terror can reach us also when we are awake or can harm our real world? That is truly scary.

My son, who never watched the movie before, knows exactly who Freddy Krueger is. “He looks like me”, he says, “I kind of like him”. My son suffers greatly from atopic eczema and while I do not agree there, it does say something about how the character has achieved a life of its own that goes far beyond the movie itself. Freddy Krueger is the boogieman.

“A Nightmare of Elm Street” was made on a shoestring budget. In fact, a lot of it is either made for free or paid with the participant own money, yet it is difficult to see from the results. It is a movie heavy on special effect and with a few near misses they mostly work amazingly well. Somethings do not have to be terribly advanced to be scarry, but with Krueger himself, the prosthetics and the effect are worthy of a far more expensive movie. This is from an age before CGI and yet they pulled off some amazing stuff there. The murder of Glenn is one of the most spectacular I have witnessed in a long time. The budget way kept low by relying on unknown actors but a lot of those have had impressive career after this movie and I think the acting performance is generally a lot better than should be expected.

Sometimes it takes a very low budget to trigger the creativity that makes a great movie and “A Nightmare on Elm Street” became a huge success both as a movie and a franchise and is today recognized as a classic.

In 2010 a remake was made with a very different budget, but, frankly, I prefer the original. I much prefer the horrific ambience to cheap jump-scares.

While horror movies are still not my territory, I do not hesitate recommending “A Nightmare on Elm Street”. This is definitely a movie you must see... before your dreams kill you, wuhahaha...

 

Paris, Texas (1984)

 

Paris, Texas

“Paris, Texas” is very much a Wim Wenders movie. A few months ago, I watched his excellent “Perfect Days” in the cinema and although I do not think “Paris, Texas” hits the same perfection, they do have a lot in common, traits that are typical for Wenders.

There is a man staggering through a desert. He looks exhausted and very thirsty. When he arrives at a store, he starts to eat ice and then collapses. A local doctor examines him, concludes he is mute and uses his wallet to contact his next of kin, his brother. When Walt Henderson (Dean Stockwell) arrives, we learn that the bewildered man is called Travis and that he has been gone and lost for four years. Only very, very slowly does he start to speak and recognize what is happening around him.

Walt takes Travis home to California where he lives with his wife Anne (Aurore Clément) and Travis’ 8-year-old son, Hunter (Hunter Carson). Hunter has practically been adopted by Anne and Walt after he showed up four years earlier, telling them that his parents had disappeared. Hunter at first wants nothing to do with Travis, but eventually they get close and when Travis sets out to find his lost wife, Hunter insists on coming along.

This is a movie that movies very slowly, not just in its pacing but also in the way it opens up its story. For the first half hour I am confused, then slightly bored, but ever so slowly meaning creeps in and confusion is replaced by understanding. Not through a big reveal, but simply by pieces sliding into place.

Travis is an enigma. Why is he walking around in the desert of Texas and why has he spent four years doing that? Where is Hunter’s mother and why is she where we finally find her? And what is the point of the title: Paris, Texas? It seems to refer to a place we only see in a worn-out photo.

For me, the biggest question was and still is, why this German film is taking place in Texas?

If you are going to watch this movie, you should stop reading right here, because getting the answer to the former set of the questions is one of the great satisfactions of watching this movie.

When Travis finally finds his wife, Jane (Natassja Kinski), working in a peep show in Houston, he tells her a story about a boy and girl who were in love. Obviously, a story about Travis and Jane. In this story we learn that their relationship developed horribly into an abusive and dysfunctional relationship where they both loved each other and wished to be far away from the other person. The relationship apparently ended by both of them taking off on their own, seemingly to find that empty place where nothing existed. No love, no pain, nothing. Travis found his empty spot in Paris, Texas and Jane found it pretending to be someone else in a peep show. Both are longing for reconciliation, especially for their son, but Travis knows that being together is impossible, so his reconciliation must be to at least bring Jane and Hunter together.

This is a movie about broken people and how there is no big solutions but only small solution or no solutions. How realizing and coming to terms with the fact that you are yourself the problem and then facing the courage to at least begin to fix that, is a monumental task. Like in “Perfect Days” people are not as simple as we think they are, but have landed where they are because of a traumatic past. Simplifying life is a remedy to reduce pain, but in itself it does not really solve anything.

“Paris, Texas” is a slow, but rewarding movie to watch. As we get closer to Travis and Jane, it becomes painful, but that is because there is something at stake and the ending is a heartbreak.

I really want to watch some more Wim Wenders, so it is good he has made a lot of movies. There are also more of his coming up on the List. This one is a good one if you like his style.

I still have to work out, though, why this had to take place in America.

 

Stop Making Sense (1984)

 

Off-List: Stop Making Sense

Last night, my wife and I were invited by friends to watch “Stop Making Sense” at Cinemateket in Copenhagen as part of their music film festival. As it turned out, this was quite an experience and I do believe that as a 1984 movie, “Stop Making Sense” deserve some recognition and a mention on my blog.

“Stop Making Sense” is a concert film featuring the band “Talking Heads”. It was filmed over four nights at the Pantages Theatre in Los Angeles but is cut so that you get the impression it is a single concert. Quite an achievement, actually, considering that all four nights must have been exactly the same to be able to create a seamless cut.

The show starts with David Byrne entering the stage with a guitar and a ghetto blaster. All on his own with the tape as backing he does “Psycho Killer”. Slowly the stage fills up. For the second song Tina Weymouth joins him, then Chris Frantz and so on until the sixth song, “Burning Down the House”, when the entire band is complete.

The show is a tour de force of the “Talking Heads” catalogue. There are songs I recognize and songs that I do not, but it does not really matter because the energy is there in every single song. This is partly due to the enthusiasm of the band, but also driven by the Duracell-bunny that is David Byrne. His idiosyncrasies, his energy and his magic voice are all infecting and I have the impression he could read up from a children’s book and still rivet the audience.

A very big part of why this was a special experience was to watch this on the big screen in the cinema. The theatre was full, and the audience was very enthusiastic. One of our group who works in the cinema business told me that the sound system used was very clever and of very high quality, so that you felt immersed in the concert and when the audience was cheering, we felt we were in the audience too so we clapped and cheered as well. It really was the second-best thing to actually being there. You got the same rush through the audience when people recognize a song and felt the same excitement as you would at the real concert forty years ago.

That was also a wondrous experience, that this did not feel 40 years ago. Apart from a few haircuts, this concert could have been recorded yesterday. The soundscape by “Talking Heads” has aged very well, meaning that I would expect or hope for the same in a concert today. Some elements may have been avantgarde in 1984, but today it is just awesome. Even though some of the synth effects may sound retro today, that sound is often actively pursued and best of all, this is music you really want to move to. I would say that the only drawback to watching this in the cinema is the inability to dance.

As it happened, the event had a solution to that. The bar of Cinmateket was converted to a dance floor and when the movie ended, the “Talking Heads” songs continued there. I think we were at it for two hours and, man, I do not think I have danced at all for half a decade. This crowd was the most unlikely combination imaginable, with the age groups spanning six decades.  We all stood out like sore thumbs and therefore nobody stood out.

“Stop Making Sense” has been titled the best concert movie ever. That is a lot of hype, but it may actually be the case, especially if watched in a cinema with an enthusiastic crowd.

This was a unique and great experience. If you ever get the chance to watch this in a cinema, do not think twice.

    

Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom (1984)

Off-List: Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom

The three original Indiana Jones movies are to my mind all masterpieces and although the second instalment, “The Temple of Doom”, is often considered the poorer of the three, it is still far ahead of anything that came after “The Last Crusade”. It is a mystery why these three were not all adopted for the List.

“Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom” (IJTD) is a prequel to “Raiders of the Lost Ark”. If you did not catch that from the date displayed (1935), it is apparent from the complete lack of Nazis. The setting is also quite different, taking place exclusively in Asia (China and India), but the most notable differences are how far it ventures into dark mystery and unbelievable stunts.

The opening is light enough. At the cabaret venue of Bar Obi-Wan (caught that?) in Shanghai, a transfer of an archaeological artifact for a diamond between Indiana Jones (Harrison Ford) and a Chinese gangster (Roy Chiao) goes haywire with shooting, dancing, poisoning and general confusion. Dr. Jones barely manages to escape with cabaret singer Willie Scott (Kate Capshaw) and child sidekick Short Round (Ke Huy Quan) in tow.

Finding themselves alone on a plane about to crash in the Himalayas, they bail out, using an inflatable boat as a parachute (!). After a completely insane decent from the mountains, they end up in India. Here the villagers believe our unlikely trio is godsent to save them from the evil flowing out from the Pankot palace. This sets off the real adventure of the movie, involving a Thuggee cult (See Gunga Din) and some very dark magic.

Some elements suffer from the classic sequel problem of “let us do the same but bigger”. The stunts are crazier where both the bailing out of the plane and the rollercoaster ride in the mines had been abandoned in “Raiders of the Lost Ark” for being too much and unbelievable. Instead of snakes, we get bugs, and instead of Nazis we get cultists. It is exhilarating, but also a tad stupid.

What we also get is a lot of the Indiana Jones vibe we love. The dry humour and the outlandish adventure and of course the gung-ho attitude. We also get a setting and a plot that is sufficiently different from the first movie to set it apart as a different movie. I used to find this darkness a detraction, but as I got older, I see it as an asset. There is something at stake here, it is not just fun and games and that adds much needed depth to the movie.

In our household, the most common talking point is the choice of lead actress. Kate Capshaw is, for lack of a better word, annoying. Her shrieking voice and her attitude is a source of pain throughout the movie, but again, as I get older, I see it actually works for the movie. I am not certain my wife has come to that conclusion yet.

Mostly “IJTD” is a fun adventure ride, made by the champions of such rides, Lucas and Spielberg. Many have tried to copy the format, but I have yet to see anybody besting it. Any of the three classic Indiana Jones movie are worth taking out any given evening or Sunday afternoon and it is a guaranteed good time. “The Temple of Doom” is my pick when I need it to be a bit darker and as such it does what it needs to do perfectly.

My favourite scene of the entire movie is the dinner scene in the palace. It takes the concept of disgusting local delicacies to an entirely different levels, and we often refer to one of these amazing dishes when we want to describe horrible outlandish food (nice, snake surprise!!!). Childish, I know, but this is a movie of my childhood.

Interestingly, both the Chinese and Indian authorities would not allow the movie to be filmed in their countries. Some people are so touchy.

 

The Karate Kid (1984)

 

The Karate Kid

One of the most iconic, most referenced and highest grossing movies to be released in 1984 was “The Karate Kid”. Even today, one of the best series on Netflix is “Cobra Kai”, a spin-off of “The Karate Kid”. “Wax on, Wax off” must rate as one of the most recognizable quotes in movie history and this movie is supposed to have done the same for the karate sport as “Sideways” did for Pinot Noir.

Why is this movie not on the List?

My wife asked the same question after we had watched the movie (again) last night and the only answer I can give is snobbery. I do not think “The Karate Kid” was ever considered high art and by including “The Terminator”, I suppose the List editors thought they had ticked that box for 1984.

Daniel LaRusso (Ralph Macchio) is a high school teenager moving to California with his mother (Randee Heller). Daniel starts his new Californian life with a few bumpy days. On the upside, he meets a pretty (and rich) girl Ali (Elisabeth Shue). On the downside, he also meets Ali’s very jealous ex-boyfriend, Johnny Lawrence (William Zabka). Unfortunately, Johnny knows karate and so does his buddies, so Daniel gets his ass kicked multiple times.

Daniel also meets the Japanese born janitor of the apartment block, Mr. Miyagi (yeah, I can see it, you are beginning to smile...) (Noriyuki “Pat” Morita). When things look the very bleakest, Miyagi steps in and probably saves Daniel from ass-kicking turning fatal. Mr. Miyagi also knows karate.

A confrontation with Johnny’s master Kreese (Martin Kove) of the Cobra Kai dojo results in a truce. Johnny must stay off Daniel until the All-Valley karate tournament, 2 months hence, at which point he can kick the shit out of Daniel. Daniel now has two months to learn karate from Mr. Miyagi himself.

While “The Karate Kid” is a martial arts film with a lot of fight scenes that (I am told) are both awesome and realistic, this really a coming-of-age story with the focus on the master and apprentice relationship between Daniel and Miyagi. This relationship is also what makes the movie special and memorable all these years later.

From the outset, Daniel is obnoxious. There is no other way to describe him. If it is the lack of a father figure, I do not know, but he takes to Miyagi as if he was his father and there is a mutual respect and sympathy between the two that is very touching. This starts before the karate training begins, but the karate makes it formal. By teaching Daniel karate, he is also forming him as a person.

It helps a lot that Miyagi is a quirky and amusing character with a lot of fantastic lines. The famous “Was on, wax off” line is not even close to his best ones. Morita’s deadpan delivery makes his lines even better. Morita could both draw on his father’s (a Japanese immigrant) mannerism and speech and his experience as a stand-up comedian and his Mr. Miyagi character is one of the classic characters in movie history, synonymous with mysterious-wise and fatherly teacher.

Robert Mark Kamen wrote the story based on his own childhood experience. His first teacher was a Kreese-type teacher, while his second was a Japanese teacher who was a follower of Chojun Miyagi of Okinawa. It sort of creates depth to the story.

As a child, I could totally identify with the characters in the movie and who has not dreamt of having a Mr. Miyagi? As an adult, I still find the movie incredibly watchable. It is not just interesting at its core, it is also very well executed on all sides and funny to boot. This may be a template story, but so well done that I can forgive the clichés.

“The Karate Kid” generated many sequels and spin-offs and for the most part they got progressively worse. Trying to tell the same story again and again is not a recipe for success. This lasted until 2018 when Macchio and Zabka came together in the “Cobra Kai” series that picks up the thread 33 years after ”The Karate Kid”. Six seasons down the line, this is still the best thing on Netflix.