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.    

 

The Terminator (1984)

 

The Terminator

“Come with me if you wanna live”.

One night in 1984, two characters appear in Los Angeles amid burst of static electricity. One is a cyborg with superhuman strength and durability, and the other is a comparatively frail looking soldier with the objective of preventing the cyborg in it nefarious purpose. Both are from the future (2029, so it is soon) and both are very interested in a particular woman, supposedly the future mother of a future leader.

Seriously, if I must explain the plot of “The Terminator”, you probably ended up on the wrong website. Also, there really is not that much to tell. Plotwise, “The Terminator” is as thin as plots go and follow the template for action movies of the eighties down to the comma. It is not really that logical either or endowed with some secondary, deeper meaning that makes the apparent plot irrelevant. By these accounts “The Terminator” is one of many action B-movies from the eighties.

None of that, however, explains why this is such an enjoyable movie to watch.

The academic explanation would be that it is a movie that plays with the genre and through that uses the template form to get to another level, but I am not certain that explanation covers it. Rather, I think it is a combination of enthusiasm, a vision, a balance between ironic distance and taking itself serious and brilliant casting.

James Cameron is a visionary man. It is the one denominator in his impressive and quite wide-ranging filmography. His filmmaking is always driven by a visual imagination, of what the movie should look and feel like. According to Cameron lore, he got the idea for “The Terminator” in a dream in a hotel room in Rome and it was the enthusiasm for this vision that he channelled into the movie. You can feel it when you watch it, there is a deeper world of thought behind what we see. His background in visual effects is also evident.

The Terminator itself is of course Arnold Schwarzenegger, a role that became iconic for him. His superhuman appearance, mechanic acting style, lack of facial expression and heavily accented delivery IS the cyborg. Today it is impossible to imagine that a lethal battle cyborg can look like anything else than Arnie and even the later high-tech versions of death machines of the franchise are not half as compelling as he is. But more importantly, his delivery of the role gives it BOTH its menacing terror and its deadpan distance. Do I need to say “I’ll be back”?

This balance is not restricted to the cyborg but is pervading the movie. The dialogue on the police station is my own favourite element. Paul Winfield, Lance Henriksen and Earl Boen are all dead serious and funny at the same time, talking about “the weird ones” and refusing to take Kyle Reese, the soldier from the future serious. Pretty much like normally thinking people would and yet with our outside knowledge, it makes them the laughingstock.

Michael Bien and Linda Hamilton as Kyle Reese and the target girl, Sarah Connor are almost the dullest part of the movie and their role is simply to drive the thin plot forward, but they are serious enough about it that they are not hampering it. They fit the vision so to speak, acting as prügelknappe for the Austrian killing machine.

In this vision of Cameron there are so many details worth mentioning. The dystopian future (which is truly horrible) matched up with the almost exclusive use of night scenes in contemporary Los Angeles. The tech noir night club (which I always wanted to visit), the trashy, rain glinsing backstreets, reminiscent of “Bladerunner” and the freakish maintenance the cyborg performs on itself. There is a fantastic eye for details here.

I watched “The Terminator” for the umpteenth time last night with my wife and son and asked them afterwards what their impression was? How should I frame my review? Their response was that it should be overwhelmingly positive, and I think that is also how generations since its release have, sometimes grudgingly, viewed it.

On paper, this is at best an action B-movie, while in actuality this is one of the true Hollywood classics. Later instalments in the franchise may have overmatched it in effects and action, but never in vision and that is where it counts.

Amadeus (1984)

 

Amadeus

The first movie of 1984 is “Amadeus”. It was also the big winner of 1984 with eight Academy Awards, including Best Picture, Best Director and Best Actor, so 1984 starts on a high.

In 1823, Antonia Salieri (F. Murray Abraham) is a patient in a hospital. He is visited by a priest to whom he tells the tale of how he killed Mozart. Yes, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, the great composer. His story takes us back to Vienna in the 1770’ies.

At this time Salieri is a court composer at the court of Emperor Joseph II (Jeffrey Jones), a sovereign very much interested in music but lacking any talent for it. At this time Mozart (Tom Hulce) arrives in Vienna. He already has a reputation as a prodigy, but he is also an infantile playboy. In an age of wigs, face powder and effeminate men, it takes something to stand out as an obscene playboy.

Salieri immediately recognizes the massive talent of Mozart and is perceptive enough to realize he is himself just an amateur by comparison. Add to this the ease with which Mozart produces his art and the libertine silliness of the man, Salieri is struck by deep envy and anger with God for bestowing such gifts on an undeserving person. Salieri makes it his life mission to bring Mozart down.

Mozart and Salieri are real, historic characters, but the story presented here is entirely fiction. Mozart died young from a mysterious ailment and already in the early nineteenth century, the conspiracy theory were flourishing that Salieri and Mozart were rivals and that it was Salieri who killed Mozart. In reality they were more like colleagues, and it was Mozart who had a thing for conspiracies.

So, if this movie is not about a historic event, what is it then? My understanding is that this is a tale of envy. Of mediocracy and conformity trying to stifle the extraordinary and the beautiful. What better example of talent than the greatest composer ever and the myth of Salieri’s rivalry with him. Director Milos Forman was Czech and had a history of subversive movies challenging the communist regimes in Eastern Europe and it is not a big jump to see Salieri as the communist party supressing the arts in the East.

As a drama, “Amadeus” works, but at a very slow pace. Considering Salieri “just” has to bring Mozart down, he is awfully slow at it, this is a lengthy movie, and it is more about the grief Salieri suffers at his more or less failed attempts at discrediting and marginalizing Mozart. Mozart suffers immensely, but he does not make it easy for himself either. He is a reckless playboy, convinced of his magnificence and spending far too much for his measly income.

The real assets of “Amadeus” are the music and the sets. Oh, Lord! Almost every time there is music, it is Mozart. The volume goes up, it is full orchestra, and it is a Mozart Greatest Hits show. We hear parts of “The Marriage of Figaro”, “Don Giovani”, “The Magic Flute” and many of his famous symphonies. I am not very knowledgeable on classical music, but even a heathen like me gets blown away by this music and the arrangement of it does it full honour. This is a movie to listen to in a cinema with a good sound system.

The set is just as magnificent. The illusion of the eighteenth century is perfect, not just on the costumes and the wigs, but using Prague as location was a strike of genius. Some of the scenes were shot in the very theatre where Don Giovanni premiered originally. It has been far too long since my last visit to Prague, but I do remember that eighteenth century vibe. I also did bring home a Don Giovanni puppet on my last visit...

What works less well is the choice of using American English as the spoken language. I know this is not an unusual thing and even Ridley Scott’s recent “Napoleon” did it, but I kept expecting to hear German. This gets really bad with Mozart’s wife Constanze Mozart (Elizabeth Berridge), who otherwise delivers an excellent performance, but her accent is so thick... According to Wikipedia, Mark Hamill was considered as Mozart. That could have been fun.

This is not a bad movie at all, even if it seems to creep along at a slow pace. There is so much to look at and listen to that I do not mind. My only regret is that I never saw it in a cinema.

 

  

1984

 

1984

At this point, I am about to start on 1984. Normally, I make no introduction to a new year, but 1984 is different. To my mind 1984 is one of the great movie years. I am, of course hopelessly biased as I grew up with these movies, but even with that in mind, the List is exceptionally stingy for this year. When I look down on lists of what was released in 1984, I am amazed the editors found room for so few movies.

Of course, the list of movies I like is a product of my personal taste and looking down the release list, many of them do not qualify as great, but they mean something to me and where I would normally add three off-List moves to review, here I feel I could add ten movies and not be done with it.

I already picked my three movies to add, but do not be surprised if a few more sneak themselves onto my block. For now, I will make a quick run-down on movies that did not make the cut for the List, but which I think deserve at least a mentioning.

In addition, there are a similarly long list of movies I am not familiar with but that I very much would like to watch. Most of those have slightly more adult zing than those on the list below.

 

Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom

Seriously? Even if this is the poorest of the three great Indiana Jones movies, it is a no-brainer. I picked this as off-List without blinking.

Karate Kid

Maybe not film art but a pop-culture landmark. Who does not know “wax-on, wax-off” and Mr. Miyagi? Also, “Cobra Kai” is one of the best current series on Netflix. This I also picked as off-List for 1984.

Gremlins

Why is this movie not on the list? This is better and more important than at least half the movies on the List. The only explanation is that the editors do not like comedies and blockbusters. This is both. Of course, I added this one.

Romancing the Stone

While this is “Indiana Jones light”, it is also immensely entertaining and one of those movies I have watched so many times.

Police Academy

Yeah, I know, not film art, but this, the first instalment was immensely funny when it came out. I have rewatched it a few times since and while it has not aged too well, I still have a good time watching this.

The NeverEnding Story

This was a monster hit in 1984, at least in Denmark. Everybody was singing the Limahl theme song, and I even went on to read the book. Personally, I found both book and film a bit disappointing, but I was in the minority at the time.

Footloose

Well, Kevin Bacon dancing...

Revenge of the Nerds

Again, not exactly high brow, but every time I think of the Nerds movies, I fell like revisiting them. This one is the mother of the Nerds movies, and the jokes are not as stupid as they later became.

Splash

A guilty pleasure. Not a great movie, but with Daryl Hannah and Tom Hanks. That alone makes it worth watching.

Red Dawn

Decidedly a B-movie, but the list of young actors that would later become big names is amazing.

Starman

With Jeff Bridges as the alien, this is a decent romantic sci-fi.

The Last Starfighter

I only watched this one in recent years and have not the sweet memories of childhood. Still not a bad sci-fi.

Blood Simple

The first feature from the Coen brothers. Say no more.

Purple Rain

Prince!!!

All of Me

Steve Martin is not my favourite comedian, but this one is one of those I like the best.

Dune

David Lynch version of Dune took a lot of heat, but I quite like it. If anything, it is not Lynch enough.

Bachelor Party

One of Tom Hanks’ earliest movie. This movie it totally nuts.

Canonball Run II

Okay, not a good movie, but it was the very first movie I went to see without parents. I thought it was great. I was 11 years old, so that kind of figures.

 

The Ballad of Narayama (Narayama-Bushi Ko) (1983)

 

The Ballad of Narayama

When “The Ballad of Narayama” (“Narayama Bushiko”) came up, I invited my wife and son to join me watching a Japanese anime movie. I was however doubly misled. The cover was cartoonish and the movie I had found was the 1958 version of the story. When I finally found the 1983 version, it was not anime and most certainly not cozy family fare. “The Ballad of Narayama” is a very brutal movie and I am glad my son did not get to watch it.

We are in a small village in a mountainous region of Japan sometime in the nineteenth century. Life here is hard and always a hairbreadth away from disaster. Orin (Sumiko Sakamoto) is the matriarch of one of the families and we follow her through most of a year while she is trying to prepare for ubasute. In this village (and likely the region) the belief is that when people turn 70, they must journey to the top of a holy mountain and there be left to die. Orin seems to long for this to happen despite her good health, so much that she knocks out some of her teeth to convince her son that she needs to go to the mountain.

 Her preparations include finding a husband for one of her son and a woman for her other son to lose his virginity to. She must train her daughter in law all her household tricks, such as how to catch trout and she must ensure the family have enough food to survive the next year.

These preparations are secondary though to the general portrait of life in the village, and this is a portrait that does not pull any punches. Excess children are killed so not to feed them, we see a baby emerge in the stream as the snow melts. An entire family, children and pregnant woman included are culled by being buried alive on the pretext that they stole food, but really to make the harvest last a full year. Women can be sold and are therefore valuable and sex seems to be the only marginally pleasant pastime of these people, which is therefore eagerly practiced. It is a life very close to nature, at the mercy of nature, really, but a life that also strips people of their humanity.

In this light, the ubasute of Orin is not just a religious practice, but both a relief from the pains of life and a means to avoid being an unproductive burden on the village. These two items are of course combined as it is an embarrassment and a pain to know you are a useless extra mouth to feed. Some of the old people refuse to go to the mountain and it is clear that they live in shame and suffers the scorn of the rest of the village.

It is a hard and merciless movie. The brutality brings the points home very effectively, but it also makes it a very uncomfortable movie to watch. The culling of the family was extremely shocking, and I had to take a break from the movie at that point. Thankfully I was watching the movie alone. The production value is very high, and the convincing realism simply adds to the brutality.

It is only a month since I was in Japan for my summer vacation and part of it, I actually spent in the very mountains around Nagano where this was filmed. The thing that stroke me, especially out there in the mountains, was how few young people there were. Japan has become a country of old people with fewer and fewer people to support the older generation. I have no idea if ubasute in any form is still practiced, but I did get a very clear impression that the old generation does not want to be a burden, that they continue to work, practically till they drop. Plus eighty-year-olds driving taxi and carrying around your luggage. Very senior train station staff. Great-grandparent baristas in coffeeshops treating the customers as if their grandchildren are visiting. They are wonderful, these old people, but I sense the sadness of the brutal reality that makes it necessary that they must continue. On the other hand, it may well be the very fact that they are still working that makes them youthful enough to do it.

In this strange and somewhat twisted way, “The Ballad of Narayama” feels relevant today. With not enough resource, there is no room for unproductive mouths.

“The Ballad of Narayama” won the Palme D’Or in 1983 and I can see why. This is very much a Cannes movie. I know I should recommend it, but I do not feel like watching it again.

 

Local Hero (1983)

 

Local Hero

“Local Hero” was an addition to the List in the grand 10th edition revision. It is on the light side so I find it surprising that this would have been added, a discussion I may take up when I get to 1984, but it is also a comedy and as the list is scarce on those, I will take it and be happy.

An American company, “Knox Oil and Gas” wants to build an oil terminal on the north coast of Scotland. There is a little village on the site so “Mac” MacIntyre (Peter Riegert) is sent to Scotland to acquire the land and pay people to move out of the way.

The village of Ferness is a charming little place on a wild and picturesque beach, and already at this point I recognize the template of the outsider arriving at a local place to disturb the peace. According to this template, Mac will, although facing hostility in the beginning with some obligatory faux pas, eventually be converted to the local way of thinking and the crisis be averted. We see that happen here as well. Gordon Urquhart (Denis Lawson), who fills multiple roles as hotel manager, village lawyer and bartender at the pub is not exactly accommodating to Mac when he arrives. Mac and his British assistant Danny Oldson (Peter Capaldi) are met with some suspicion by the locals.

That is, until they find out why he is there. According to the template this should piss them off and that is also what Mac expects. Instead, they are over the moon with joy and happy as on Christmas Eve. The lives these people live are hard and frugal and with all the money Knox oil is going to pay them they are finally free to move away and live they lives they want to live. To the villagers, Mac is not disturbing the peace, but Santa coming with gifts of a lifetime.

While this works well for comedy, it would seem to take away the drama of the story. The only ones who are opposed to the project is the aptly named Marina (Jenny Seagrove), the marine biologist who were led to believe the project is a marine laboratory, and Ben Knox, an old man living in a shed on the beach who happen to own four miles of the coast. And, of course, Mac himself who, getting to know the local village, falls madly in love with life there, so different from the corporate city life he is used to.

The opposition of Ben Knox turns critical when the villagers turn on him for obstructing their windfall and it takes the interference of the equally eccentric Knox oil top dog, Felix Happer (Burt Lancaster), to secure a happy ending.

As I mentioned above, “Local Hero” is close to being a template comedy and the twist here is really all that keeps it from being one. Had it been the locals fighting the corporation this would have been unbearable sweet and romantic, but it adds some bitter spice that what we, the outsiders see as a romantic and original culture, sticks no deeper than their wish to get away from it with money in their pockets. It is nice for us to visit such places, but for those who live there it is not as romantic as all that. I have myself experienced that when working on wind farm projects on remote locations. When you come with a lot of money, the locals are only too happy to get those, and it is outsiders who see it as something lost. Not always, but often enough and who are we to say that is wrong, us with less stake in it?

No doubt the village and the place itself would suffer a great loss if the place would be turned into an oil terminal and Mac, with his outsider’s view, can see how special what these people have is. Where he starts as a high powered, cynical businessman, he becomes more and more reluctant and apathetic as he must proceed towards the inevitable.

It is a charming movie, and the success of this template can always be measured on how well we manage to get under the skin of the locals, both those in focus and those in the background. They never turn ridiculous and despite their very local manners, the movie remains sympathetic towards them, but it also does not become an outright postcard. It is a tight balance, and the balance is well maintained. The only place where the movie tip over is around Felix Happer. His eccentricity makes the portrayal of the locals look like a documentary.

The only part of the script I failed to follow was the role of Russian trawler, Victor (Christopher Rozycki). As a fellow visitor I appreciate the advice he gives Mac, but after that he hangs on and takes part in the negotiations although he has no stake in them. Maybe I missed something.

Mark Knopfler did the score of the movie and even with a rudimentary familiarity with Dire Straits, you will recognize the “Local Hero” theme as one of Dire Straits signature tunes. It works terrific for the movie.

“Local Hero” is easy and pleasant. It is awfully close to being template and light weight but has enough charm and twist and underlying food for thought to stand out and be worth watching. And the List does need more comedies.

 

Scarface (1983)

 

Scarface

“Scarface” from 1983 is supposed to be a remake of “Scarface: Shame of a Nation” from 1932. Frankly, I do not remember much of the original movie, so I went back to read the review I wrote 11 years ago. In the second paragraph I wrote that gangster movies all seem like copies of each other and that I am not very sympathetic to them in the first place. That is a position I still hold 11 years later. With back-to-back gangster movies, I am get tired of them as a genre and this one is definitely inferior to “Once upon a Time in America”.

The 1983 version of “Scarface” tells the story of the rise and fall of Tony Montana (Al Pacino), a Cuban small time crook evicted from Cuba to The States, where he soon makes contact with the local criminal world and starts to make a name for himself.

His first job is to kill a fellow Cuban refugee. Next, he and his Cuban friends has to buy some dope from another gangster. This almost goes horribly wrong as the sellers turn on them and cut up Montana’s friend with a chainsaw. The resulting bloodbath is spectacular.

Tony and his right-hand Manny (Steven Bauer) now begin to work for a local drug lord, Frank Lopez (Robert Loggia), whom Tony impresses, but then fall out with when he sets up a cocaine import deal with a Bolivian drug lord, Sosa (Paul Shenar), way bigger than Frank can handle. Tony wants everything Frank has, including his girlfriend, Elvira (Michelle Pfeiffer), and when Frank tries to get rid of him, Tony kills Frank and takes over all that was his.

We then jump 3 years ahead where Frank is a big drug lord himself. At this stage everything implodes on Tony, mainly due to his own poor choices and bad temper and the whole thing ends in a giant and very bloody shoot-out.

Tony Montana is a thoroughly unsympathetic character. At every turn he is brutal and egoistic and filled with a very macho anger and pride that may give street credit, but very few points in my book. His rise is sort of a “crime pays if you are brutal enough” fable. The American dream achieved through violence. I ended up hating the guy with a vengeance and his fall could not happen quick enough. There is supposed to be some sympathetic traits, such as his refusal to kill children and him out-smarting his opponents, but when you start at -100 points, these things all mean nothing. Maybe we are supposed to be impressed by him, but I was merely disgusted.

The world in Scarface is a bleak place. It is a place of cheap death, of dirty money and dirties cops. It is a rich people’s world where wealth means you are above the law and normal human standards. It is a world where machismo is cooler than anything. Tony Montana fits this world perfectly, so maybe the point of the movie is that a world that allow these values is a world that allow Tony Montana.

One thing I did not understand is how it could take this long for Tony Montana to implode. His character is incredibly destructive and often destroys the very things he is trying to do. He lashes out without thinking, which is rather stupid, really. These are traits he brings to the table from the beginning so to imagine he would make it to the top and continue for three years before his deroute, is just too incredible. I cannot follow the scriptwriters here. This would imply something happened at this point, but nothing is happening that did not already happen in the beginning.

“Scarface” is a famous movie. It is famous (or infamous) for its extreme level of violence, something me may shrug at today, but by 1983 standards, this is really out there. If is famous as the ultimate gangster movie and it is references in popular culture like no other gangster movie. This is supposed to be big stuff. I guess I am just not very sympathetic to gangster movies in the first place.

 

Once Upon a Time in America (1983)

 

Der var engang i Amerika

It has been quiet on this blog for some time, largely due to my summer vacation in Japan, but also because this entry clicks in at almost 4 hours. With all my other summer activities, this amounts to watching a full season of a tv-series. Things take time.

When I think of Sergio Leone, I invariably think of his westerns. Applying his particular format of super close-ups, composition pictures, long takes and epic scale on any other setting is difficult for me to wrap my head around. Yet why not? To do this on the American gangster movie though, seems like a stretch, until you realize that this is just another sort of western.

Sergio Leone’s swan song is about a Jewish gang in New York. Chronologically, it starts in the early twenties where a group of boys, Noodles (Robert De Niro, Scott Tiler), Patsy (James Hayden, Brian Bloom), Cockeye (William Forsythe, Adrian Curran) and Dominic (Noah Moazezi), do small jobs for the more established gangsters until Max (James Wood, Rusty Jacobs) shows up and their gangster activities become more serious. This is not where the movie starts, though. The opening is an orgy of violence where a series of people are shot or tormented ruthlessly, forcing an adult Noodles to escape to Buffalo and a new identity. This is a worthy Leone opening which is only marred by the incessant ringing of phone that started to get to me badly.

In 1968 Noodles returns to New York and as he walks down memory lane, we follow his “career” in flashbacks. These includes the shocking killing of Dominic, the rise of the gang with Max and Noodles forming a leadership team and Noodles infatuation with Deborah (Elizabeth McGovern, Jennifer Connelly), the sister of part time gang member Fat Moe (Larry Rapp, Mike Monetti). The killing of Dominic sends young Noodles into a frenzy where he kills the murderer and stabs a policeman, earning him several years in prison.

When Noodles is released in 1931 everybody has grown up and the gangster business is lucrative but tough. Max and Noodles disagree on the direction with Max wanting to take chances Noodles are not ready to take.

This is where the movie becomes complicated and where the 1968 thread ties in with the opening in 1933. I do not want to reveal too much of what happens here, but frankly, I am not myself too certain what happens. Suffice to say that Noodles have been living for 35 years thinking he killed his best friend while Max was actually alive and kicking and essentially stole everything that was Noodle’s.

This would not be Leone if the main characters were not a complex combination of good and evil or at least complex. The movie works as a portrait of Noodles, his aspirations and desires. Ruthless and violent on the one hand, but still with a sort of moral compass, especially when it comes to loyalty and the boundaries of what is acceptable. This gets really complicated when it gets to Deborah, a girl he loves and who cares for him, yet refuses to commit to him. There is an infamous rape scene where he has learned that she will leave him to go to Hollywood, “forcing” him to take what is not freely given. This is frankly one of the ugliest scenes in a movie full of ugly scenes and we are somehow supposed to understand why he does it. Yet, I suppose that even he can see that he went way too far and maybe this is what changed him for good.

I suspect that Leone wanted to extend this portrait of a man to a portrait of a nation growing up, that the story of this gang is somehow also the story of America as seen from Leone’s Italian chair. I am not certain how well this analogy works or how flattering it is.

There is no doubt that “Once Upon a Time in America” is a big movie. In every sense it is large and that includes the production value. Every scene is thought through and there are so many details everywhere. It also takes its time, for better or worse. On first release the original movie was cut down from four to two hours and the scenes ordered chronologically and the movie tanked. The version in general circulation today is almost the original length and has been celebrated as a masterpiece. I am not certain I would go this far, but it is a movie that needs to be watched slowly.  

My main objection to “Once Upon a Time in America” is that I am struggling to see the point, but that may be more my problem than the movie’s problem. Maybe I just need to think some more about it.

Koyaanisqatsi (1983)

 

Koyaanisqatsi

“Koyaanisqatsi” is a non-narrative film and should as such be considered as an art film. I knew that going in, so I skipped reading up on the movie before watching, in order to make my own experience with the movie. By leaving out a narrative, the sensation of watching the movie becomes the message and in a sense the narrative. It is a movie to be felt.

The imagery of the movie is either in time lapse or in slow motion with the speed of either varying. We start out with natural landscapes of deserts. Empty land devoid of anything. Then we switch to human made deserts. Sad, ruined land, empty housing areas, nuclear bomb explosions and superhighways. The impression here is that these human wastelands is as devoid of life as the natural wastelands.

Scenes now switch between pictures of human life and machinery, both in time lapse so it appears extra hectic and with stressing music. The scenes with people and the scenes with machinery look uncannily similar as if we are all cogs and wheels in a big machine. It is stressing to look at. Factory workers at high speed, thousands of cars criss-crossing city streets, people coming off an escalator very much like the sausages at the factory. Only when we then switch to the individual human do we switch to slow motion as if juxtapositioning the person with the machine that is our modern life.

The speed of the time lapse keeps increasing until at the climax everything is a blur. Even daily, harmless routines like eating and watching television looks hectic and inhuman. Then, finally we see the grid of the city and the grid of an electronic circuit board, and they look very much the same. We are all small electrons buzzing around in the big machine.

After this we see pictures of individual characters seemingly left outside, stepping away from the paths of everybody else and a rocket exploding in mid air along with a number of other scenes of destruction. The message I get is that we need to step off this race or it will end badly.

The execution of all this is of high quality, the pictures are sharp, the editing skilful and the music is haunting. It is a bit long for what it is trying to do, an hour and half was too much for a single sitting for me, but it is fascinating if rather stressful to look at.

It is also difficult not to be convinced by the movie. Our daily life at high speed is very much like a machine. Something about the time lapse takes away our humanity and when that is combined with the sheer number of people, it all looks like a frantic anthill. I used to go frequently to Beijing and Seoul and there I got that same feeling.

Does this mean that we all need to step off the hamster wheel and break with conformity? I do believe this is the message here, but maybe less can do it. Maybe this is a warning to not let go of our individuality and to find a balance between being a member of the big machine and being ourselves in our own little world.

The end credit tells us that “Koyaanisqatsi” means “life out of balance” (among a number of similar translations) in the Hopi language, so I suppose we need to find that balance and avoid getting eaten up by the machine. Maybe watch “Mordern Times” again...

“Koyaanisqatsi” is an interesting art film. In comparison with “Sans Soleil” which I reviewed a few weeks ago, it is a lot easier to interpret, though the individual picture were far more interesting in that other movie. Or maybe it is just because I am going to Japan in a few days. Still, I do recommend it as one of the better non-narrative movies I have watched.

The King of Comedy (1983)

 

The King of Comedy

“The King of Comedy” is Martin Scorsese’s take on infatuation with fame and the famous. It is also Scorsese’s attempt at making a comedy... sort of.

One night after the filming of his talk show, Jerry Langford (Jerry Lewis, being sort of himself) is accosted by a horde of fans as he tries to get to his car. When he finally gets to his car, there is a screaming woman inside. One of the fans steps in to help get the woman out of the car and Jerry into it, only to join a surprised Jerry in the car. Rupert Pupkin (Robert De Niro), as the fan is called, wants to introduce himself to Jerry Langford as a way into the business and only by promising to set something up does Jerry get away.

We then learn that Rupert lives in his own version of reality. In this world he is already bestie with Jerry, he is a star comedian and universally adored. We also learn that he and the woman in the car, Masha (Sandra Bernhard) are acquaintances and work together to get close to Jerry. Rupert because he wants to be like Jerry and Masha because she sees herself in love with Jerry. The sad truth is that both are in desperate need of help.

Rupert shows up frequently at Jerry’s office where he is politely rebuffed. Rupert, being the fool he is, does not take a hint, even when he is eventually kicked out by security. As his second option, Rupert is convinced that he would be welcome if he shows up at Jerry’s country home. Rupert wants to impress the waitress Rita (Diahnne Abbott) so he brings her along. While she is quick enough to catch that they are not welcome, Rupert has a very hard time accepting it.

Third option is the hard way. Masha and Jerry kidnap Jerry to force a show appearance of Rupert and give Masha a date with the helpless Jerry. While this goes about as stupid as you can imagine, Rupert actually gets his 15 minutes of fame.

This was a very hard movie for me to get through. I think it took me two weeks of pausing and procrastinating to get to the end. I am not good at movies about people ruining their own lives with their stupidity or poor decisions, especially when it is due to mental illness. Rupert has so convinced himself that he is God’s gift to comedy and that Jerry is his best friend that he completely disconnects from reality. We see these delusions in scenes taking place in his mind and it is really really sad and disturbing. He is not just some clown but a victim in its own right. I felt so sorry for Rita, being dragged along to a famous person’s home only to find out she has been duped and is unwanted. I would simply have left, on my own, on foot if need be. The embarrassment is unbearable.

The focus of the movie of course is the infatuation with fame and the famous and that it messes up people. That unfamous, ordinary people think that the grass on the other side is so green and that these famous people are so special. It is a winner and loser game and if you see yourself as a winner, you are one. Except, Masha and Rupert are not ordinary people but mental patients, diagnosed or not, and so the comedy is so bitter that it is not funny at all.

The end of the movie tells us that any sort of fame makes you famous, even idiocy, because the public is stupid too. Acerbic? Sure, but probably not far from reality.

I have had a hard time with Scorsese’s movies in the past and I know this is a trend that will continue. Getting us to like and take interest in unlikable and stupid people is an uphill battle and for me is often a lost one. It is interesting to see a superstar like Robert De Niro cast as someone who delusionally wants to be a superstar, but this is also as far as I follow “The King of Comedy”. As a comedy, it is too bitter to be fun (for me at least) and as a human-interest story it is way too hard on its leads. Pointing to a disturbing relationship between the idea of fame and actual fame may be its main credit, but that does not cut it for me.

While reviewers love this movie (7.8 on IMDB) it totally tanked at the box office. I see why on both parts.

The Right Stuff (1983)

 

Mænd af rette støbning

“The Right Stuff” is the best movie about test pilots and the early space program that I know of. Hand down.

At Edwards Air Force Base in the high Californian desert, the USAF are testing experimental planes and at the local bar the wall is covered with pictures of dead test pilots. In 1947 the object is to break the sound barrier and one of the, still alive, pilots, Chuck Yeager (Sam Shepard) is making the attempt, and succeeds where others have failed, in the X-1 plane.

In 1953 Gordo Cooper, Gus Grissom and Deke Slayton (Dennis Quaid, Fred Ward and Scott Paulin) are new pilots at Edwards, a place where pilots like Chuck Yeager are still dangerously pushing the envelope of what fighter planes can do while their wives are powerless and nervous bystanders.

The Russian Sputnik scare ignites a frantic quest to send Americans into space and we follow how pilots, like the three above, are gathered from different branches, but also the scramble itself to place humans into space. Rockets that explode, arguments on whether a space capsule is a remote-controlled container, or a spaceship controlled by an astronaut as well as the political jockeying around the space program. The focus, however, remains with the seven astronauts who now include John Glenn (Ed Harris who 15 years later would return to the space program in his amazing portrayal of Gene Kranz), Alan Shepard (Scott Glenn), Walter Schirra (Lance Henriksen) and Scott Carpenter (Charles Frank).

I am a bit of a space nerd and I love documentaries, book, exhibitions, you name it, about space and spaceflight. I have visited the Kennedy Space Centre and watched the launch of a Falcon 9 rocket. My science project in high school was on rockets and includes material on ESA’s Ariane 5 rocket. Behind me, as I write this, I have a Sky-Watcher telescope capable of watching the rings of Saturn and the stripes of Jupiter. For me, watching an undoubtably heroic epic like “The Right Stuff” is much less about macho-men with jet fuel for blood, but all about how many details it gets right and “The Right Stuff” is usually very close though sometimes disappointingly far off the mark.

The feel of the movie is that of a dramatized documentary. There is some real footage, authentic characters and anecdotes. It feels very real and for a space buff like me, this is awesome. Gus Grissom gets some poor treatment by the screenwriters, especially in the affair of the hatch opening prematurely on his flight, though the biggest clash with reality is when the movie’s need to created heroism converts, albeit dangerous, routine into spur of the moment reckless heroism. The Chuck Yeager substory suffers substantially from that and this is a bit surprising since he was in fact consultant on the movie and even gets a cameo in the bar scenes.

Jarring as these details are, it does not take away the sense of adventure here, of something big. There is a very basic appeal here in that this is fundamentally a very good story, delivered very well. I watched the Disney tv-series on “The Right Stuff” and despite being much longer and likely more correct, it never manages to inspire as the original movie did.

I have seen the Mercury capsule, one of those fished out after splashdown, and in the rocket garden of Kennedy there are copies of both the Redstone and the Atlas rockets. To think that people climbed into this and sat on top of that is just mindboggling.

But then, if these seven astronauts were only half of what they were presented as in the movie, it goes a long way to explain why they did it. I suppose they had the right stuff. Or were completely mad.

Either way, this will likely be my suggestion for Best Movie of 1983.

 

 

The Fourth Man (De Vierde Man) (1983)

 

Den fjerde mand

If I could give this movie a subtitle, it would be “Hitchcock in Dutch”. Hitchcock on acid with plenty of nudity, gory violence, some gay sex and plenty of religious symbolism, bordering on the blasphemous. Is it good? I do not know, but it is very much Verhoeven.

Jeroen Krabbé (who for me will always be the villain in “The Fugitive”) is Gerard Reve, a fiction writer of renown, but also a man with quite a few... issues. In short order these are: alcoholism, visions, obsession with catholic symbols, with death and his bisexuality. The first half hour of the movie is essentially a rundown of all the things that trouble this fellow.

Gerard is going from Amsterdam to the port town of Vlissingen to give a speech to the local book club. As it gets a bit late, he is offered to stay overnight with the treasurer of the club, the cosmetologist Christine Halsslag (Renée Soutendijk). She is a very delicious woman and a widow, so the night is well spent together, and we get see all of the pretty Ms. Soutendijk, literally. Gerard is also easily talked into spending a few extra days.

In the course of his stay, Gerard wants to write a story abut Christine. He finds out that she is also seeing a handsome young man called Herman. Gerard instantly falls in love with Herman and talks Christine into fetching him from Germany. While she is away, Gerard gets ridiculously drunk and learns, from Christine’s home movies, that she was married not once, but thrice and that they all died horrible deaths.

Christine returns with Herman, plenty of sex ensues and Gerard gets convinced he will be the fourth man.

“The Fourth Man” (“De vierde man”) references Hitchcock extensively. “Vertigo” and “Rear Window” is easy to recognize, but there are elements from quite a few more. The platin blonde girl, the witness to murder, the confusing signs, the even more confused potential victim and so on. The references queue up and I can imagine a sport of spotting them. This is not a spoof of Hitchcock, but more like fanfiction with a lot of oomph. All the elements get an extra notch or two in volume.

This is particularly the case with the Verhoeven staples. Our lead, Gerard is a very flawed character. We may understand him, but with his extreme qualities, it is difficult to sympathize with him. The religious symbols stack up, but also seem to be a red herring. They lead our attention, but apparently to nowhere and at the end may only be a product of Gerard’s delirium.  There is a lot of sex, hints of sex, sex motives and full-frontal nudity of both genders. Very Dutch. The function of the nudity is a bit obscure though, and besides the shock value, I think it is mostly used to intensify Gerard’s delirium.

From a murder mystery point of view, we are presented with the very Hitchcockian question of whether or not murders were committed or if it is only in the head of the potential fourth victim. Yet, I get the feeling that Verhoeven is less interested in this question and a lot more focussed on following, with some glee, the deroute of his protagonist. This is all about a guy going crazy.  

I do like a murder mystery, and I do love some Hitchcock, but I do not share the excitement of watching a guy go crazy. Gerard needed help to begin with and by the end he is a raving lunatic. Is that fun? Or exciting? He is playing with fire and losing, but he was losing from the very beginning and that makes this just a very sad movie with some sex and violence.

After this movie Verhoeven went on to Hollywood and among his later movies was the remake of “The Fourth Man”: “Basic Instinct”. All everybody talked about was how we saw a little too much of Sharon Stone, but frankly, it is peanuts compared to the original.

A little too Dutch for me I suppose.

 

Terms of Endearment (1983)

 

Tid til kærtegn

The winner of Best Picture at the Academy Awards in 1983 was “Terms of Endearment”, yet I never watched it before and even the name of the movie is one I have only heard mention in passing. What I did learn watching it, was that for all its apparent qualities, this is not a movie I would seek out and probably one I would not want to watch again. Maybe I did not miss much all those years.

Aurora Greenway (Shirley MacLaine) is a woman with one concern in her life: herself. Everybody around her is a concern for her only as they relate to herself. An episode in the very opening of the movie is telling. Aurora is concerned her baby girl may not be breathing. Her husband tries to tell her it is just sleeping. She enters the room, crawls halfway into the crib, shakes the baby awake so it starts to cry. Then satisfied the baby is indeed breathing she leaves the room with the baby crying, unattended.

Aurora is widowed when Emma, her daughter is still a child and their relationship is the focus of the movie. Emma (Debra Winger as Emma grows up) becomes a one-person support group for Aurora while she in turn is smothered by her mother. While Aurora’s sole purpose is her vanity, Emma is a more complex size. She always has her mother trying to run her things and so it seems that her fight is to get her own way. She marries Flap (Jeff Daniels) mostly because her mother does not like him and yet she remains close to her mother. For both the women, however, my lasting impression is that they are both very self-centred.

Flap gets a teaching position in Iowa, far away from Texas and Emma and Flap have three children together, but the pattern remains. The children learn that they are second, they need to give space to their mother. Flap, well, he has his work and eventually also an affair there. The suspicion of such an affair is enough to throw Emma into an affair of her own.

Meanwhile in Houston, Aurora is courted by many men, but start seeing her astronaut neighbour Garrett (Jack Nicholson). Garrett actually challenges her and refuses to be used as a mirror for her which is actually good for her and whatever improvement there is on Aurora, is largely due to Garrett.

I realize writing my synopsis that rather than telling of a plot or a narrative, I am merely trying to make a portrait of Aurora and Emma and I guess this is what this movie is all about. It wants us to understand these two people, but the more I learn about them, the more I come to dislike them. Or rather, I disliked them early on and it never gets better. No matter where they end, it is mostly about themselves. Tom, Emma and Flap’s oldest son, is a good image of my dislike. He sees both Aurora and his mother as failing him, his brother and their father. In Aurora and Emma’s life, there is simply not room for them.

This is a movie that is very strong on acting. The sheer number of nominations and wins in the acting categories is a testament to that. But it is also about people I dislike intensely, so rather to earn that sympathy the movie wants me to give them, I feel like kicking them and protect their surroundings from them. I hate to say it, but the “tearjerker” ending felt to me more like relief.

Obviously, a lot of people like and liked “Terms of Endearment”. While it is obvious Oscar bait, it also worked amazingly well at the box office. Whether it is because people really like selfish people or like to watch annoying people ruin theirs and other people’s lives, I do not know. Neither really works for me.

I think I can name quite a few movies in 1983 I would rather have winning.

 

Utu (1983)

 

Utu

Utu is a Māori word that seems to mean something between vendetta and revenge. A formal, almost ceremonial, declaration embedded in Māori culture. That it is also the title of this movie says a lot about it. For somebody like me, unfamiliar with the Maori and their culture, this was an exotic ride.

It is 1870 and New Zealand is going through some of those clashes most colonized areas went through at the time. The Māori, as the original inhabitants of the land, saw the Europeans, the Pakehas, as landgrabbers, murderers and generally unjust, while the colonizers saw the Māori as subhuman vermin, especially those not christened yet. Many Māori were doing service in the colonial forces and for one of those, Te Wheke (Anzac Wallace), the wanton killing of Māori villagers became too much so he deserted and declared Utu on the Pakehas. His rebellion gained momentum as he attacked settlements, and his murder of a firebrand priest is particularly vivid.

One of those attacked was Williamson (Bruno Lawrence). Te Wheke’s band killed his wife and razed his home. For this he went on a single man hunt for Te Wheke with his impressive four-barrelled gun.

The young Lieutenant Scott (Kelly Johnson) was eager to show his prowess in battle, but somewhere between the arrogant and borderline incompetent Colonel Elliot (Tim Eliott) and the Maori girl, Kura (Tania Bristowe), he seemed to be constantly sidetracked.

Finally, Wiremu (Wi Kuki Kaa), was a scout in the colonial forces, a similar role as what Te Wheke had, though instead, Wiremu stayed loyal. He also turned out to be Te Wheke’s brother.

We see skirmishes between the parties, including a battle at night for a lonesome hotel, and enough to see that both of the parties are guilty of atrocities, but also that both parties have right on their side. While the battle only really results in a lot of people dead, real resolution is found in the final scenes where everybody appears to be having cause for Utu, but only through the ceremonial completion of the ritual can peace be restored.

It is obvious throughout that everybody sees themselves as native to the land, just in different ways. Everybody speaks English, but everybody, with the possible exception of the Colonel, speaks fluent Māori too. It seems to be the point of the movie that Māori and Pakeha are actually all the same people when it comes down to it.

Whether this is a naive, revisionist retelling of formative events in the history of New Zealand, or this is a truthful account of both historical event and national outlook, I am not the right one to tell, but it is an admirable point it tries to make and likely a more insightful portrayal of both indigenous people and colonizers than we usually see.

There is a keen attention to detail in “Utu”. Costumes, settings and historical details are meticulous, but more importantly, the Māori are depicted with a richness that makes this more of a Māori film than a western film. There is extensive use of the Māori language, also when Pakehas are involved and there are a lot of Māori actors here, both in major and minor roles. It is, more than anything, these unique qualities that made the movie worth watching for me.

While the production value is very high, this was the most expensive production in New Zealand at the time, there are also places where the movie suffers. Several of the characters feel half-cooked as if “Utu” had been intended as a long television series, but was boiled down to a feature. Kura, Wiramu and Scott all needed a lot more background and motivation. As it is, we just have to accept their actions at face value. This is of course the price of any action movie, but here it felt more like a flaw in the script.

Another, minor, complaint is that I found the score clashing with what we were watching. I know a lot of it was original, but I felt this was music for a different movie or a misunderstood idea of what the score should be. It is somehow too big and civilized for the frontier of New Zealand.

Overall, however, “Utu” is an impressive and worthwhile movie to watch, and it certainly has made me a lot more interested in the “Land Wars” of the nineteenth century in New Zealand.

 

Vacation (1983)

 

Off-List: Vacation

The National Lampoon’s Vacation movies are incredibly popular in my family. The favourite is the “Christmas Vacation”, but it was “Vacation” from 1983 that started the party. In my family the movie is known simply as “Walley World” and we reference it every time a trip (of any sort) is becoming an expedition. This happens surprisingly often as my inner Clark Griswold asserts itself.

Obviously, this movie, or at least “Christmas Vacation” must earn a place on my 1001 movie list.

The Griswolds is a nice, middle class suburban family as families are most. Except that Clark Griswold (Chevy Chase) is a bit, well, quite a bit, extra. He has his own ideas of how things should be, tries to do everything right, but through a combination of optimism, over-confidence, self interest and poor decision making, he always ends up in a series of disasters. The rest of his family, Ellen (Beverly D’Angelo), his wife, Audrey (Dana Barron) and Rusty (Anthony Michael Hall), their children, have a hard time keeping up with him.

Clark has a two-week vacation and has planned the greatest family vacation ever: A road trip across the US to California to visit the theme park Walley World. The vacation gets a bumpy start when the car Clark had ordered did not arrive and, instead, he is stuck with the “Wagon Queen Family Truckster”. Probably the unsexiest family car in the history of mankind.

Every step of the way, Clark Griswold’s unique qualities lead the family from either near-misses to outright disasters. We are introduced to Ellen’s cousin Cathrine (Miriam Flynn) and her hillbilly husband Eddie (Randy Quaid), recurrent characters in the franchise. The family is coerced to take the intolerable Aunt Edna (Imogene Coca) and her monster of a dog along with them to Phoenix. Going through all the roadblocks would take the fun away, so let me just say that somewhere in Arizona this is no longer a vacation but a mission, a quest for fun. Clearly, Clark Griswold has lost his marbles.

Finally, finally, the family arrives at Walley World, only to find out it out of business for maintenance. Take one guess at what that does to Clark...

I do not know how many times I have watched this movie. No matter how well I know the jokes, I still laugh every time. The humour stands up surprisingly well and I think it is a combination of not running the jokes too far and that we can, at least a little, see ourselves in this family vacation not going according to plan. Clark’s “giving up is not an option” attitude is also a very recognizable spoof on the virtue of persistence. Maybe sometimes it is okay to call it off and cut your losses. I am myself the master of over-ambitious plans and whenever I plan a hike or a trip, I inevitably get that look from the rest of the family, oh oh, Griswold. Yeah, movies work when we can laugh at ourselves.

Everything in “Vacation” works, although I learned that apparently the original ending did not, so that half a year or so after the original shooting had ending, a new sequence had to be shot at Walley World. Only, teenagers grow a lot in half a year and if you look closely, you see that Rusty is suddenly a lot taller. Still, I am happy they did redo this ending because it totally works. Taking the roller coaster at gunpoint is so Clark Griswold.

The “Vacation” generated a long living franchise with varying success. The “Christmas Vacation” and the “Vegas Vacation” are great while the remake of “Vacation” from 2015 is a real stinker.

For us, Walley World is not a place or a movie, it is a concept.

Money (L'Argent) (1983)

 

Blodpenge

The Cannes winner of 1983 was Robert Bresson’s “L’Argent”. This was also his last movie. As Bresson is a familiar name on the List, I knew more or less what sort of territory we are entering here.

The focus of the movie is as the title says, money. Money as the agent of everything that is wrong in the world. The narrative is sort of a chain reaction, starting with a teenage boy who is barred from the kind of allowance he wants and therefore exchange a large counterfeit note in a camera shop. The shopkeeper wants to get rid of those fake money he has and so lets his young assistant, Lucien (Vincent Risterucci) pay for fuel with them. The fuel delivery man, Yvon (Christian Patey) does not suspect a thing, is caught when he tries to pay with them in a cafe. In the ensuing court case Lucien and the shopkeeper denies everything so Yvon gets fired. Out of job, he gets hired for a heist, is caught and sent to prison. Meanwhile, Lucien steals from the shopkeeper, is fired and then goes ahead robbing the shopkeeper. The he goes to prison too. And this is just the beginning.

Seen as a conventional movie, “L’Argent” is a pretty shitty movie. It is heavily stylized which means that all the acting is strangely wooden, and the characters are like automatons, delivering their lines and nothing more. All the characters are also flat and the only thing we learn about any of them, even the principal characters, is about their connection to the money in question. They need money and they are willing to compromise anything to get them.

The error here is of course to watch this as a conventional movie. “L’Argent” is an artistic project that is not here to entertain, but to drive an artistic point. The point here is the corruptive effect of money and by reducing the actors to robots, everything outside the money fades away. It is a singular desire. Defence is singular, the law is singular, violence is simply an extension of means to obtain money if other ways are barred.

Is Bresson then successful with his art project? Beauty is in the eye of the beholder as they say. The jury in Cannes obviously found it successful, though being an aging French movie icon would have been to his advantage here. I am not personally as certain. Because everything else fades into the background, the message here is so singular that it is banal. Money is bad. Money corrupts. Money is the cause of everything bad that happens.

The problem with that is that it is not a discussion or a polemic setup. It is simply a statement. If we learned something about the people that was corrupted or the victims there would have been depth to the statement, but instead it is simply a litany of all the horrible things people will do for money. It is just way too simplified. On top of that it is oldest cliché in the world to blame money and greed and by extension capitalism. Not that I in any way want to defend and clear finance and greed of evil, but, come on, this is really cheap.

When Bresson tried to focus on very basic elements in his movies from the fifties, they worked so well be because they condensed to object to stunning clarity. With “L’Argent” he is trying to do the same thing to our relationship with money, but to me it completely lacks the zing of his early movies and instead it feels tired.

It is an art movie and I like the idea of it, even appreciate it. It just does not really work for me.

The Last Battle (Le Dernier Combat) (1983)

 

Den sidste kamp

I am continuing down the road of mystifying movies. Interesting visually, but difficult to decode what is going on. “Le Dernier Combat” (“The Last Battle”) is a fascinating watch, but I am still, hours after finishing it, wondering what story it is trying to tell. Or indeed what it is I was looking at.

The movie clearly takes place in a post-apocalyptic world. People are few and largely scavengers. All the trappings of civilization are broken and crumbling. Its black and white scenography looks like “Fallout” in grey-tones.  We are following a man, identified in the titles as “The Man” (Pierre Jolivet), who is scavenging to make or fix a small aircraft. In his encounters with other scavengers, we learn that spoken language is non-existent, but we never learn why. The Man escapes a violent clash with the scavengers in his plane and crash lands in a town. This unnamed town is populated by only three other people. There is “The Doctor” (Jean Bouise) in an abandoned hospital, “The Brute” (Jean Reno), a man who wants to get into the hospital and an unnamed and unseen woman held in a room at the hospital by the doctor.

The Man gets into a fight with The Brute, and, injured, seeks shelter in the hospital. The Doctor and The Man become friends, which lasts until The Brute gain entrance and go on a murdering rampage in the hospital.

This was Luc Besson’s first feature movie and as always with his movies, it is visually interesting. The post-apocalyptic world is bleak and frightening and although the actors are just going around in old ruins with a lot of garbage, it carries the sense of places suddenly left year earlier. There is dust everywhere and everything is broken and torn. Literally everything.

The problems I have with the “Le Dernier Combat” come primarily from the narrative. I do not understand what these people want or why they are doing what they are doing. The Man wants to fly, but why and where to? The Brute wants to enter the hospital with an almost childish glee, but why? What is there that he wants so bad? When he finally gets there, the only thing he seems to do there is to kill. The Doctor keeps a girl in a cell. Why? And who is she? Why is it speech has disappeared? We get no answers to any of these questions.

I end up suspecting that Luc Besson had this idea of a post-apocalyptic world where speech had disappeared and went big time into the world building. Then, because after all this is a movie, he needed the characters to do something, anything, but without caring too much about what they actually did.

Later I had the thought that “Le Dernier Combat” works well as a companion movie to the 1981 movie “Le Guerre de feu” (“Quest for fire”). That one takes place before civilization, while “Le Dernier Combat” takes place after civilization. In both cases language is gone, people are hunter-gatherers, encounters at violent or friendly, nothing in between and humanity is reduced to basics. The Doctor’s cave paintings in the hospital is a massive hint in that direction. Again, the narrative is less important, it is the picture of the world that matters.

A definite upside was to see a young Jean Reno. Even in less good movies, Reno is always able to make the movie worthy of watching. Just strange to see him here as the villain. A slightly comic villain?

On the decidedly negative was the strange soundtrack. Not that the music was bad, but it belonged to a VERY different kind of movie. In this context it was somewhere between comic and confusing.

As a tableau “Le Dernier Combat” is spectacular, thought provoking and worth watching. As a story, and indeed as a movie, I consider it flawed and I am therefore hesitant to recommend it.