Possession (1981) Review

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(More customer reviews)After many years of acquiring a cult status of mythical proportions, Zulawski's "Possession" finally comes to the viewers as it was originally supposed to be seen.
This is not an easy movie to see or to understand -- and I suppose it neither was easy to write or film. The characters are severely neurotic and seem to thrive on their bizarre behaviour (in more ways than one) yet they are somehow all too human. Like the movie ultimately suggests (once you get to see the secret trick the movie plays on the two leads), this story may be like looking into a mirror, though dark and distorted.
Meet Mark (Sam Neill), an overworked man with a mysterious job that takes him "to far away places". Meet his lovely wife, Anna (an overwhelmingly beautiful Isabelle Adjani), a sexually frustrated housewife and former ballet instructor who has much more than meets the eye going on for her.
Between quarrels and reconciliations, these two share a nice apartment in a quiet and well-to-do district of Berlin and have a five year old son, Bob, but they also share a horror that no one could have suspected, and that will make all their fantasies and nightmares come true.
After being brutally butchered by Vestron Video for its original release, "Possession" has been restored to its original lenght and sequence, therefore becoming coherent for the viewers who used to find it mind-numbingly strange.
I think of it as a very unique piece of craftmanship, part Ingmar Bergman drama, part Polanski suspense thriller, part Dario Argento gore, part Kubrick satire, part Buñuel surrealism and still somehow, very much its own.
The camera angles, the direction, the strange whims and seizures that seem to take over the characters (including one memorable and disturbing scene on a subway station with Adjani pulling all the stops not ontly to her acting abilities but to her physical strength too) are part of a very strange style Zulawski has to tell his story.
If you are accustomed to standard horror fare, then probably you will dismiss this movie as pretentious eurotrash (something it has been labeled off as countless times) but if you're game and follow the sequences and let your imagination be ensnared this will be a convulsive ride to the depths of emotion where you won't emerge as the same person.
And quite possibly, that's what all horror movies are really about at heart.
As a footnote: Isabelle Adjani won a very deserved Gold Palm at the prestigious Cannes Film Festival for her dual role in this film that, no matter how much you loved it or hated it, is still unforgettable.
The quality of the DVD in picture and sound is also of note.

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In this controversial epic of obsessive love and sexual psychosis, Isabelle Adjani (QUEEN MARGOT, NOSFERATU THE VAMPYRE) and Sam Neill (MY BRILLIANT CAREER, JURASSIC PARK) star as a married couple torn by emotional instability and carnal infidelity. As their madness grows, their world becomes a nightmare of savage murder... and climaxes in a monstrous manifestation of sexual evil.Written and directed by acclaimed international director Andrzej Zulawski and featuring shocking creature effects by Carlo Rambaldi (ALIEN, E.T.), POSSESSION is an experience like no other - part masterful art film, part bizarre horror thriller. Cut by nearly 45 minutes for its U.S. release, this controversial film is now presented here completely uncut and uncensored.EXTRAS:Audio Commentary with Director Andrzej Zulawski and Biographer Dan BirdInternational TrailerU.S. TrailerAndrzej Zulawski

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The Castle (1997) Review

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(More customer reviews)I can't speak for the wisdom of remaking FUNNY GAMES for an American audience, but that aside, Michael Haneke's films since THE PIANO TEACHER have steadily shown more daring. Haneke has attained the stature of a Welles: all of his work deserves to be seen, even his lesser work. Thanks to Kino, that is now almost completely achievable on home video.
THE CASTLE, made for Austrian TV, looks like a lot of European TV. It is shot in a much more conventional style than other Haneke films: more cross-cutting, shorter takes, more close-ups. It not only fails to give us the spatial sense of the novel, it can hardly be said to be production designed at all. Mostly, it is shot against nondescript backdrops.
Despite these constraints, THE CASTLE is an entertaining extract of Kafka's novel. It is wholly a Michael Haneke movie, while still spotlighting some aspects of Kafka that can easily get lost in the dense overgrowth of the author's prose. Among these things is the fact that Kafka, as we know from his diaries, was a fan of Chaplin. Ulrich Muhe, too old and too Gentile to be the K. of the novel, nevertheless captures the put-upon Everyman at the heart of the character. The Chaplinesque nature of K., as it turns out, was right there in the novel all along. The same goes with Dickens/Kafka connection. Simply by allowing supporting actors to show a bit of ham, Haneke keeps the proceedings lively and colorful in a way previously camouflaged by Kafka's style.
As a personal film by Haneke, everything remotely evoking psychological states or tending toward metaphor has been surgically removed. We never see the castle. We see the village once in a drawing on the door of the Inn, and that is underneath a sheet of newspaper that blows to reveal the drawing only when the door is opened. The messenger Barnabas doesn't appear all dressed in white, an important detail in the novel that motivates K. to believe he is more intimately connected to the castle than he is. He looks like what he is: the cobbler's son.
A MAN ESCAPED, by Robert Bresson (one of Haneke's acknowledged influences) is the likely model for the voice-over style of THE CASTLE. We hear the narrator relate events exactly as we are witnessing them. As with Bresson, it is an "alienation device" out of Brecht; like Bresson and Brecht, though, Haneke is, in spite of himself, too good a dramatist to keep us at arm's length for long.
THE CASTLE has previously been made into a very good film, in 1968. That version tried to smooth over the unfinished nature of the book, yet managed to capture its elliptical essence. Haneke's conceit is to dwell on the fragmentary aspects of the book, to the degree that he often cuts to black in the middle of scenes that are continuous in the novel. (!) Still and all, he has made the more accessible of the two adaptations. By fashioning his script as a twisted love story between K. and Frieda (the exceptional Susanne Lothar), he has embedded a familiar plot arc into an otherwise unresolved story. The result is an enjoyable film, and a unique critical take on one of the 20th century's great authors.

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Castle Keep (Widescreen Edition) (2004) Review

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(More customer reviews)As I saw this film and Midnight Clear again recently, I thought about Stanley Weintraub's book Silent Night in which he discusses a brief period prior to Christmas in 1914, on the battlefields of Flanders, when German and British soldiers spontaneously agreed to declare a truce and suspend fighting, thereby defying their commanding officers. Centuries ago, knights and their attendants would work with their enemies to clear a field for combat the next day. Such cooperation had an obvious practical value. That's not what interests Weintraub as he examines a temporary truce during one of the bloodiest wars ever fought. It had little (if any) practical or tactical value but it did (and does) suggest a human need which transcends military obligations. However, war is war. After a brief respite, the carnage inevitably resumes.
Directed by Sydney Pollack and based on William Eastlake's novel, it stars Burt Lancaster (Major Abraham Falconer), Patrick O'Neal (as Captain Lionel Beckman), and Peter Falk (as Sergeant Orlando Rossi). They and their five associates are in Belgium during the winter of 1944 when they seek some R&R in the 10th century castle of Count Henri Tixier and his wife, Countess Therese. The Count is impotent and desperate for his wife to produce a male heir. Falconer is an obvious candidate to help the Count achieve his objective. Meanwhile, the war in Europe continues, of course, but the castle keeps them safe from its dangers and deprivations.
While seeing this film the first time and then again recently, I felt as if I were dreaming that I had returned to the 1940s in a time machine, to Belgium near the end of World War Two. Credit Henri Decae's cinematography with creating an uncommonly beautiful setting within which savage combat eventually occurs, reminiscent of John Mathieson's visually stunning camera work during the "Hell Unleashed" sequence early in Gladiator. This is a haunting film, at times an exquisitely lovely film. Certain scenes caused me to think that I was hallucinating.
It now occurs to me that perhaps (just perhaps) Castle Keep portrays a group of men at war, not as they really were nor as war really was at a given time but as those men would remember it decades later, had all of them survived and eventually shared their memories of the castle and surrounding area. That is about as close as I have come (thus far) to understanding certain surrealistic moments in the film. Castle Keep deserves more attention than it has received.
Hopefully it will soon be available in DVD format, accompanied by special features will include as much discussion of it as is already available or can be generated. I fondly recall the "Movies in Time" series on the History cable television channel, hosted by Sander Vanocur, which featured films such as Saving Private Ryan. Before, during, and then following each screening, Vanocur and his guests would discuss the film. How much I wish there were a recorded interview out there, somewhere, during which Pollack, Decae, Lancaster, Falk, and others associated with Castle Keep share their thoughts and feelings about its meaning and significance.

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The Films of Alejandro Jodorowsky (Fando y Lis / El Topo / The Holy Mountain) Review

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(More customer reviews)....the official version is available to pre-order here although search is still only bringing up the bootleg page.
Anchor Bay will release a special limited edition collector's box set, The Films of Alejandro Jodorowsky, on DVD on 5/1/2007(SRP $49.98). The set will contain El Topo, The Holy Mountain and Fando Y Lis on DVD, fully restored and remastered from new HD transfers in anamorphic widescreen video, with Dolby Digital 5.1 and 2.0 audio (El Topo is 125 minutes in Spanish, The Holy Mountain is 114 minutes in English, Fando Y Lis is 93 minutes in Spanish). The box set will also include 2 music CDs containing the soundtracks for El Topo and The Holy Mountain, as well as a DVD of Jodorowsky's never-before-released first film, La Cravate. El Topo and The Holy Mountain will also be available separately (SRP $24.98 each). The El Topo DVD will contain audio commentary by the director, the original theatrical trailer (with English voice-over), a 2006 on-camera interview with the director as well as an exclusive new interview, a photo gallery and original script excerpts. The Holy Mountain DVD will include audio commentary with the director, deleted scenes with commentary, the original theatrical trailer (with English voice-over), the Tarot short with commentary, a restoration process short, restoration credits, a photo gallery and original script excerpts. Fando Y Lis will include audio commentary with the director and the La Constellation Jodorowsky documentary. Subtitles on the discs will be available in English, French, Spanish and Brazilian Portuguese.

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Among the extras included in this collector's box is previously unseen footage, a feature on the restoration process, an exclusive interview with Jodorowsky, optional director commentary tracks, subtitles, two special CDs of the films' soundtracks and a separate DVD of the first film ever made by Jodorowsky, La Cravate. EL TOPO: -Original theatrical trailer- English V.O. -2006 on camera interview with Jodorowsky (Language English/English subtitles) -Photo Gallery/Original script excerpts -Exclusive interview with Alejandro Jodorowsky THE HOLY MOUNTAIN - Deleted scenes with director commentary (Language: Spanish with optional EN, SP, FR & BR PORT subtitles) - Original theatrical trailer -English V.O - The Tarot short with director commentary (Language: Spanish with optional EN, SP, FR & BR PORT subtitles) - Restoration process short (Original Language English) - Photo Gallery / Original Script excerpts - Restoration Credits FANDO Y LIS -La Constellation Jodorowsky documentary -Original language French and English Stereo TWO AUDIO CDS - El Topo soundtrack - The Holy Mountain soundtrack

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David Lynch's Inland Empire (Limited Edition Two-Disc Set) (2007) Review

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(More customer reviews)`Inland Empire' is full of surprises. Convoluted and suspenseful we follow the story lines of successful actress Nikki (Laura Dern) who is waiting for the results of a tryout for a new Hollywood movie, `On High in Blue Tomorrows`. Soon she is visited by her new Polish immigrant neighbor. In her nosey way she pries information, but also intensely warns her of bad omens. She foretells that Nikki will obtain the part she has tried out for, but the story, is a remake and a murder will take place. She intensely relates folk tales, including one about a girl at the marketplace in an alley behind the palace who loses her memory. "Forgetfulness happens to us all," she relates. She also incessantly speaks of "unpaid bills" in a scathing fashion. Rebuffing the neighbor's pointed comments, the actress asks the suspicious elderly woman to leave.
The movie fast-forwards to the next day as the woman foretells in the narration. The gypsy fades out with a vengeance. Nikki gets the part, and on the set we meet Devon (Justin Theroux), her dashing, handsome co-star. The director (Jeremy Irons) facilitates a script reading where he relates that the film is indeed a remake; one where a murder took place and was allegedly cursed from the start.
From here the movie weaves its way through many scenes. Nikki's husband warns the young co-star of the consequences of sneaking out with his actress wife. Some feature Southern characters Billy and Sue in the movie, but they are so closely connected to their actual lives that we begin to lose our own grip on reality. Eerily suspenseful scenes show (Nikki or Sue) walking through a house in bewildered trepidation. Then, we are transported to the lives of the screen couple in the backyard. Next, we find them in Poland during the dead of winter. In one scene the actors are having an affair; in another the characters are. To spice things up, we get a play with actors in rabbit costumes performing an absurdist comedy. At certain points, just when we feel grounded, a woman is watching all the drama on television in her dark apartment.
The developments of `Inland Empire' are intriguing. Like `French Lieutenant's Woman' (significantly also with Jeremy Irons) there's a movie story mixed within a real story. Unlike `FLW' it isn't easy to tell where one story ends and the other begins. In ways like Altman's `The Player,' we have to decide what components are real and which are not. One finds oneself asking many questions while watching the movie. Which parts are from the movie? Which parts are real life? Are the scenes in Poland real or are they components of the original film? Is this all seen through a viewer's eyes or is it all part of the movie? Is she crazy or is her character crazy? Surely, the theme of misogyny is at the forefront as we come across prostitutes and male abuse. Not to mention the claustrophobic fishbowl existence of celebrity life. One thing is for certain, the movie is assembled expertly. It comes across like a mansion full of mirrors--like a fun/haunted house. Not everyone will like the exit strategy (Afterall, who likes hitting the pavement after a funhouse?) but it certainly provides a strange and intense experience.


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A magikael, fairy dusted ride through the darkest realms of our collective imaginations. Terrifying!

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