End of New Wave Class
Une histoire d'eau (A Story of Water). Godard and Truffaut collaborated for a short film in 1958 set in the flooded countryside south of Paris. Actually, collaborate is a bit off, since Truffaut went with actors to shoot all the visuals and then he got busy making The 400 Blows so Godard did all the editing and soundtrack for the movie. The result is a quirky, extremely upbeat short narrated by a woman having a playful romantic fling in the floodlands. The literary aspects of narration get played around a bit: it doesn't correspond to what's happening onscreen most of the time. Also the music joins in the energy and jolts. Nothing spectacular, but you see a lot of the themes of these two directors in their infancy. 7/10.
Bande à Part (Band of Outsiders). Godard's second gangster film from his early days of filmmaking. I enjoyed this one more than Breathless for the majority of the film, but then the last third felt too long and not as peppy. Maybe the heaviness was caused by the stricter adherence to gangster genre conventions in that final third? Anna Karina did a better job acting in this film than My Life to Live, but the two guys felt underdeveloped. The beginning and middle had lots of fun with the sound and narrative conventions, to go against traditional filmmaking and "literature"-based films. I really wish that feeling had continued throughout the film, because the characters were interesting. Actually, maybe it's just that Karina's character was more cheerful then and when she got more hesitant about commitying the crime the movie soured a bit for me. Actually, it seems pretty similar to Breathless in that the men feel compelled to be traditional gangsters while the female resists it. The film wrestles with obligatory genre elements and breaking along its own route. In that kind of analysis, I don't feel it has anything more to offer than Breathless. But in terms of playful banter and filmic "tricks", this was far more enjoyable. Anyway, this is probably the last New Wave pic I'll be watching for several months. and I'm thankful of that. I've been oversaturated and now I'm ready for some counterprogramming! 7/10.
City of Lost Children. A strong man and a young girl navigate through a grungy, yet cartoonlike world where dreams of children are stolen by a freakish old man who cannot dream. Both Christian and I were disappointed in this one, as we've heard plenty of good recommendations for it. But beyond the stylistic elements of the excellent 1880s-1920s style scenery/costumes and the frenetic cinematography, I couldn't find much else of interest in the movie. The whole dream aspect goes unexplored and even the machinations of the Cyclops and the inventor don't get much attention. I've heard people say that this movie was partly inspired by La Jetee, and so I was expecting many scenes to have the quality of the future scenes in Twelve Monkeys. I also expected some of the gothic, neo-noir atmosphere you get in films like Dark City. And as for the dream stealing, I at least expected at least as much distress as you get in The Dark Crystal. Instead, this film caterwauls with a circus-like spirit from start to finish. In the downtime between the wacky incidents, I found myself bored, and even the wacky incidents got annoying after a while (especially characters screaming all the time, or being someone gross). It all started feeling way too spastic by the end. The directorial style is there to make for a unique vision, but that's assuming a vision exists. 6/10.
(T)raumschiff Surprise [Dreamship(Spaceship) Surprise]. A German spoof of Star Wars and Star Trek to a maximum fagginess. The first 30-40 minutes were really hilarious in their spoof elements. For example, they have an actual Jamaican guy who is an idiot, which would be offensive if it weren't basically what George Lucas did with Jar-Jar Binks. There's a bunch of funny lines as well as a majorly buff and shirtless Til Schweiger. I also liked how they named the main guy Captain Kork, which could only sound like Captain Cock in German. Some of the silly plays on words required knowledge of German, but for the most part the jokes translated fine into English. I wish they had kept more scenes spoofing Star Trek, because those were some of the funniest and I personally really like seeing Uhura spoofed. It's also a shame that the second half of the movie had hardly a laugh in it and I didn't find the Darth Vader character funny at all. In terms of laugh level, I'd say it's about the same as Galaxy Quest (some fantastic laughs but lots of unfunny downtime). I don't think it would be as funny if I watched again and was more sober. 6/10.
Bande à Part (Band of Outsiders). Godard's second gangster film from his early days of filmmaking. I enjoyed this one more than Breathless for the majority of the film, but then the last third felt too long and not as peppy. Maybe the heaviness was caused by the stricter adherence to gangster genre conventions in that final third? Anna Karina did a better job acting in this film than My Life to Live, but the two guys felt underdeveloped. The beginning and middle had lots of fun with the sound and narrative conventions, to go against traditional filmmaking and "literature"-based films. I really wish that feeling had continued throughout the film, because the characters were interesting. Actually, maybe it's just that Karina's character was more cheerful then and when she got more hesitant about commitying the crime the movie soured a bit for me. Actually, it seems pretty similar to Breathless in that the men feel compelled to be traditional gangsters while the female resists it. The film wrestles with obligatory genre elements and breaking along its own route. In that kind of analysis, I don't feel it has anything more to offer than Breathless. But in terms of playful banter and filmic "tricks", this was far more enjoyable. Anyway, this is probably the last New Wave pic I'll be watching for several months. and I'm thankful of that. I've been oversaturated and now I'm ready for some counterprogramming! 7/10.
City of Lost Children. A strong man and a young girl navigate through a grungy, yet cartoonlike world where dreams of children are stolen by a freakish old man who cannot dream. Both Christian and I were disappointed in this one, as we've heard plenty of good recommendations for it. But beyond the stylistic elements of the excellent 1880s-1920s style scenery/costumes and the frenetic cinematography, I couldn't find much else of interest in the movie. The whole dream aspect goes unexplored and even the machinations of the Cyclops and the inventor don't get much attention. I've heard people say that this movie was partly inspired by La Jetee, and so I was expecting many scenes to have the quality of the future scenes in Twelve Monkeys. I also expected some of the gothic, neo-noir atmosphere you get in films like Dark City. And as for the dream stealing, I at least expected at least as much distress as you get in The Dark Crystal. Instead, this film caterwauls with a circus-like spirit from start to finish. In the downtime between the wacky incidents, I found myself bored, and even the wacky incidents got annoying after a while (especially characters screaming all the time, or being someone gross). It all started feeling way too spastic by the end. The directorial style is there to make for a unique vision, but that's assuming a vision exists. 6/10.
(T)raumschiff Surprise [Dreamship(Spaceship) Surprise]. A German spoof of Star Wars and Star Trek to a maximum fagginess. The first 30-40 minutes were really hilarious in their spoof elements. For example, they have an actual Jamaican guy who is an idiot, which would be offensive if it weren't basically what George Lucas did with Jar-Jar Binks. There's a bunch of funny lines as well as a majorly buff and shirtless Til Schweiger. I also liked how they named the main guy Captain Kork, which could only sound like Captain Cock in German. Some of the silly plays on words required knowledge of German, but for the most part the jokes translated fine into English. I wish they had kept more scenes spoofing Star Trek, because those were some of the funniest and I personally really like seeing Uhura spoofed. It's also a shame that the second half of the movie had hardly a laugh in it and I didn't find the Darth Vader character funny at all. In terms of laugh level, I'd say it's about the same as Galaxy Quest (some fantastic laughs but lots of unfunny downtime). I don't think it would be as funny if I watched again and was more sober. 6/10.