Metropolis (1927, Fritz Lang)

A collage of pistons and gears, pumping in stereo and beating out an industrial harmony, Metropolis signals its objective from its first images, attributing human qualities to the cold and inorganic. The intersection of horizontal and vertical lines and coalescing of multiple exposures conjures a hypnotic motion, evoking the aesthetic beauty of a mechanized society, only to counteract its power through a harsh plume of steam from the factory whistle. Symbolizing the great divide between the toil of the rank and file and the fruit of their labor, Fritz Lang and Thea von Harbou appealed for arbitration, using editorial elegance and geometrical design as visual metaphor for social balance. The diagonal beams of the logo, streams of liquid and towering structures are a triumph of symmetry and scope, manufacturing a universe that is rooted in human conflict, but alien in its sterility.

Harnessing energy for the “Eternal Gardens” that lie above, the subterranean working class develop a symbiotic relationship with their machines, the spasmodic motion of their limbs mirroring the spring-driven click of a clock’s skeletal hands. As they listlessly trudge to the hovels beneath the workshop floor, Freder (Gustav Fröhlich), heir apparent to Metropolis’ throne, frolics in his palatial flowerbed, unaware of the class disparity that stimulates his opulent lifestyle. A moment of revelation blossoms from the kindness of an intruder, the warmth of her visage precipitating a profound sensation in Freder’s breast. We see Maria (Brigitte Helm) as Freder sees her, angelic and bathed in radiant light, encircled by adoring children like the Christian messiah. Her presence consecrates Freder, guiding him on the path from privileged complacency to virtuous activism.

The ineffability of Freder’s passion and divine influence stand in stark contrast to Metropolis’ fortified structures, arched like cathedrals and boundlessly ascending to the heavens, but stressing architectural and intellectual practicality. Lang attributes human qualities to these immense edifices, transforming the nucleus of “The Heart Machine” into a demon’s mouth, ingesting enslaved laborers as they ascend to its malignant altar. Its moniker even acts as a depressing personification of mechanics, attributing more value to the synthesized parts than their operators, rendered on screen by the swift disposal of injured craftsman.

Hallucinations overwhelm Freder as he glimpses the grave conditions of the power plant, inspiring visions of Moloch so vivid that the letters of the deity’s name intersect like shot arrows in the center of the screen. Lang’s employment of unique typography instead of standard intertitle mirrors the sleek linearity of his topography, drawing influence from the rudimentary shapes and textures of the Absolute film movement (aided by co-founder Walter Ruttmann). The marriage of stenciled backdrops and physical sets heighten the symphony of images, each circling biplane and stratum of concrete building to a complex, but not illogical, cityscape. Transitions and fades masterfully marry this juxtaposition of booming sound and intricate mise-en-scene, the crescendo of cymbal, drum and string paralleling the majesty of the set design and emotional heft of the narrative.

Thea von Harbou’s script also deals in contrast, accentuating ideological differences between characters and intrapersonal conflicts, fleshed out between two rival variations of the same being. Acting as counterpoint to Freder’s transparency, Rotwang (Rudolf Klein-Rogge) is a menacing and conniving figure, wiping a greasy flock of white hair from his sunken eyes as he pores over his anthropoid inventions. Fabricated from the remains of Freder’s mother and glistening sheets of metal, Hel is a false God for an industrialized future, a robotic merger of man and machine that has a striking fluidity of motion and indented cranial halo. Intending to sow “discord” between the workers and Maria, the symbol of their solidarity, Rotwang models the automaton’s coating after her pearly skin, fashioning a licentious Frankenstein’s monster to arouse and distract her devoted congregation.

As the “man-machine” stirs to life, surrounded by ascending and descending waves of electricity, the heat gleams like a shooting star in its chest, generating a stunning portrait of artificial beauty that rivals the human form. The android’s magnificence may seem contradictory, but its ability to allure corresponds to the entrancing effect its physique has on Freder’s peers, biting their knuckles and panting in a salacious frenzy as it gyrates and mimics sexual congress. Lang once again uses Freder’s imagination as a canvas for artistic innovation, visualizing his paternalistic horror through concentric circles, exploding orbs of light, multiple overlay and superimposition.

Brigitte Helm, tackling the “Madonna” and “Whore” roles of Maria and Hel, embodies light and dark, expressing compassion, fragility and sexuality in equal measure. She transcends the constraints of her characters and the duality reflected in her performance aligns with the film’s plea for mediation between opposing sides, channeling a harmony that stretches from script to screen. Considering the breadth of vision, the narrative is remarkably direct and blissfully simple, seamlessly intertwining parable and fantasy, injecting realism and faith into the steely tenets of Futurism.

Metropolis (Universum Film AG, 1927)
Directed by Fritz Lang
Written by Thea von Harbou
Photographed by Karl Freund, Günther Rittau and Walter Ruttmann

Sherlock Holmes (2009, Guy Ritchie)

Fixed in a state of perpetual motion, Guy Ritchie’s Sherlock Holmes takes a working-class approach to the distinguished detective, balancing his investigative acumen with a visceral physicality and outsider mentality. The intellect is present, if a bit muted, muffled beneath the thunderous blow of fists on the soundtrack and procession of tracking shots, sensory elements that add sophistication to the salvo of on-screen dustups. Holmes’ newfound passion for pugilism may be more for Ritchie’s benefit than our own, but who am I to deny a director his fetishes, especially ones handled with such elan and conviction.

Embracing intoxication unlike any Holmes before him, Robert Downey Jr. portrays his sleuth as a bit of a degenerate, happily wallowing in a filthy study, wantonly under the influence of a bevy of anonymous substances. His intemperate state lends a shiftiness to his eyeballs, each darting glance collecting evidence like a photographic lens, compiling data for use in the near future. Slow-motion visual representations of Holmes’ thoughts preface his actions, primarily indiscriminate beatings, orchestrated by his mind and accomplished, seconds later, by the sinewy muscles of his chest and forearms.

His cavalier nature and propensity for roughhousing put a strain on his partnership with Watson (Jude Law), their cohabitation terminated after Holmes’ boorish dinner behavior ends in wasted wine and a furious fiancée. It’s not impossible to imagine this petulance as a way to disguise homosexual desires, especially when taking into consideration Holmes’ capricious relationship with Irene Adler (Rachel McAdams), a counterspy regarded as his “beard” and halfheartedly depicted as an ex-lover. Even if Holmes isn’t using her presence as camouflage, she’s certainly out of his league, poisoning his wine on a lark and gleefully cracking walnuts as proxies for his testicles.

Holmes fares better in the field than he does in the boudoir, apprehending Blackwood (Mark Strong), London’s preeminent warlock, in the midst of a ritual sacrifice and city-wide manhunt. Aiming to bring the nation to its knees with his blend of “practical magic,” Blackwood predates fascism, but bears a striking resemblance to a uniformed Nazi, his slicked hair and leather-collared jacket mimicking their rigid silhouette. Ideologically, he espouses Satanic dogma, at least a fictionalized version, using ostensible supernatural faculties to kill in a clandestine manner and survive a neck-snapping at the gallows’ pole. Regardless of communal superstition, Holmes remains pragmatic, deriding “modern religious fervor” and probing the alleged resurrection as a mystery to be exposed only through logic and keen detection.

The satisfaction Sherlock Holmes gathers from the “thrill of the macabre” is shared by Sarah Greenwood’s production design, the recesses of which are stuffed with potions, vermin and varied necrophrenalia. One especially handy gadget appears to be an modified tuning fork, capable of shooting propulsive currents of electricity that catapult Holmes’ adversaries through load-bearing walls and wooden door frames. Though the foley work dwells on the crackle of each broken limb, the trading of punches carries the rhythm of dance and rarely reflects the actual consequences of physical violence. Having said that, this fixation on fisticuffs does little to move the narrative forward and frequently extends well beyond its shelf life.

Guy Ritchie’s visual compositions are far more expressive and integral, signifying danger through the spiraling chasms of sewer channels and serpentine metal of scaffolding. His use of slow-motion is just as vital, displaying the ripple of fabric and sonic destruction caused by the detonation of dynamite, amplifying the impact by retarding the progression of time. Filmmaking by brute force works on an aesthetic level, but breaking chronology to double back and reveal obscured details seems meretricious, functioning only as an exercise in style and damaging the integrity of the puzzle at the film’s core. The only rehash that serves a purpose is Holmes’ concluding speech, an exhaustive cataloging of every esoteric image spied by the camera eye, left nearly forgotten, called to mind to clarify the untold deductions of the investigation and validate Ritchie’s muscular direction. The synopsis is wordy, but the thesis is cogent, dismantling the influence of the supernatural and untenable nature of spirituality through critical thinking and reason.

Sherlock Holmes (Warner Bros. Pictures, 2009)
Directed by Guy Ritchie
Written by Arthur Conan Doyle (characters), Michael Robert Johnson (screenplay and screen story), Anthony Peckham (screenplay), Simon Kinberg (screenplay) and Lionel Wigram (screen story)
Photographed by Philippe Rousselot

Young Sherlock Holmes (1985, Barry Levinson)

Despite efforts to divorce its story from Arthur Conan Doyle’s oeuvre, even politely stating a lack of affiliation in the opening credits, Young Sherlock Holmes preserves the spirit of Doyle’s characters, fostering an intimate relationship between the adolescent leads and using deductive reasoning as the backbone of their forthcoming professional partnership. The core attributes are deep-rooted, regardless of the reconstituted origin story and multitude of practical effects, which act as a pleasant diversion, but produce a distracting incongruity when paired with Victorian set design. Nevertheless, the alliance between Albion pomp and American excess routinely prevails, bolstered by unexpected melancholic notes and lived-in performances that could sway even the most obstinate purist.  

The setting is a snow-bound London, frigid and inhospitable, in spite of the flaxon beams of moonlight pouring over the narrow streets and illuminating the intricately-painted backdrops. The interiors of an eatery are cozy by comparison, warmed by steaming platters and the orange glow of lantern sconces. A modish middle-aged man, emanating an air of high breeding, ducks into the roadside café, evading an unseen stalker with an antique blow gun. Street scenes of their foot chase are shot from above and below, avoiding faces and benefiting from the jagged contours of brick buildings and stony paths. The resulting homicide is far less subtle, as our dignified patron, poisoned by an airborne dart, hallucinates that his pheasant dinner has reanimated and attempts to throttle the flailing bird.

The animatronic work aims to startle the film’s juvenile audience, but the overindulgence clashes with the refined atmosphere, cheapening an otherwise stimulating pursuit. The second murder setpiece cultivates a more harmonious fusion, laying animated cells atop live action footage and realistically extracting a knight from an ornate stained-glass window. As the belligerent swordsman approaches the envenomed vicar cowering before him, his flimsy glass frame quivers with each step, acting as a merger of scientific logic and the brazenly fantastic.

The precocious Sherlock Holmes (Nicholas Rowe), barely in his teen years, pores over the details of these “suicides” in the Reynolds’s Weekly Newspaper, drawing parallels between the upbringing and social sect of the recently departed pair. Utilizing investigative skills honed by schoolyard riddles and competitive fencing, Holmes treats his new bunkmate, the shy John Watson (Alan Cox), as a dry run for his first case, uncovering his backstory by scrutinizing his manner of dress and stout build. The invasion of privacy is a way for the greenhorn to build confidence and resolve, traits he’ll desperately need to attract the attention of Elizabeth (Sophie Ward), the gamine niece of campus mad-scientist and fictional first in flight, Rupert T. Waxflatter (Nigel Stock).

Bestrewn with tools, trinkets and knicknacks, Waxflatter’s attic laboratory is the summation of Executive Producer Steven Spielberg’s Reagan-era aesthetic, a two-pronged approach that promoted innocence and awe through sensory overload, while subtextually addressing the forthcoming compromises of adulthood. The agony of divorce, illness and poverty that swam beneath the surface in E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial are far more pronounced in Chris Columbus’ script, shedding light on Holmes’ monomaniacal focus on detection through an examination of the series of death and abandonment that stretches back to his early childhood. The film’s best metaphor directly follows Holmes’ expulsion from school and Waxflatter’s murder, as the young intellectual hides in the comfort of his mentor’s attic, his fear of the maturity that accompanies disappointment and loss driving him into a place of safety and boundless imagination.

The exhilaration of the case, which shoves the pair down a rabbit hole of Egyptian pseudohistory, subterranean witchcraft and capitalistic corruption, is as much an entertaining distraction for us as it is for Sherlock Holmes. A climactic hallucination brings both parties back to reality, as the budding detective, intoxicated by a poison-tipped dart, mentally retreats back to his childhood manor. Veiled in onyx and lit only by flickering, cobwebbed candelabra, Sherlock’s mother sobs in a rocking chair as his combative father, standing hearthside, bellows angrily at his inquisitive son for revealing his adulterous nature. Exposing the faults of our progenitors and heroes can be weighty material for younger viewers, but this poignant strand and its tragic coda masterfully shade in a complex character, exhibiting his single-minded obsession with investigation as an enduring defense mechanism.

Young Sherlock Holmes (Paramount Pictures, 1985)
Directed by Barry Levinson
Written by Arthur Conan Doyle (characters) and Chris Columbus (screenplay)
Photographed by Stephen Goldblatt

The Hound of the Baskervilles (1939, Sidney Lanfield)

Comforting in its old-fashioned formality, The Hound of the Baskervilles milks suspense from a stockpile of dated banalities, fabricating an insular, clammy environment from stagy backdrops and exaggerated expressions. The caterwauling of cast and soundtrack alike conceal narrative shortcuts by sheer volume, placing the chilly pleasures of a horror-tinged whodunit at the fore and rashly obscuring the core puzzle beneath protracted oration and antiquated intertitle. Left without a stake in the mystery, the audience ruminates over the defects, finding little of merit in Richard Greene’s listless performance and its accompanying romantic subplot, inevitably settling for the attractive rind atop fleshless fruit.

The preserved elements of Arthur Conan Doyle’s text flourish when used appropriately, particularly in the discourse conducted between Sherlock Holmes (Basil Rathbone) and Dr. John Watson (Nigel Bruce), which is snappy without sounding garbled or rushed. The film benefits heartily from Rathbone’s cocksure and quick-witted take on Holmes, his knowing glances and self-possession contrasting Watson’s skepticism and lumbering gait. No introduction is needed for these prominent literary figures, their collective quirks deeply ingrained in Western culture, and screenwriter Ernest Pascal wisely inserts them directly into the narrative in progress, eschewing an origin story.

The matter at hand concerns murder amidst the dreaded “moors of Dartmoor,” a location as sparse and craggy as the surface of the Moon and swathed in creamy layers of brume. In accordance with local legend, every Baskerville male for countless generations has met a grizzly end upon receiving his inheritance, mauled by the jaws of a phantom canine. The genesis of the myth is shown in faded images, superimposed over intermittently turned pages from the folio that harbors the tall tale. Returning to handle his deceased uncle’s affairs, Henry Baskerville (Greene), the last living heir, laughs off these resident superstitions, only to be rattled by an ominous threat in the post, cobbled together from newspaper clippings.

Ignoring the forewarning, Baskerville returns to his ancestral home with Watson in tow, curiously turning a blind eye to Holmes’ absence and the assassination attempt that occurred within hours of their voyage. The “dreadful eeriness” of the manor is just as unwelcoming as London’s cobblestone thoroughfares, leaving Henry and his guest to walk on eggshells around the servants, their malignant stares and nocturnal scheming laying the groundwork for a plateful of red herring. Despite the material’s familiarity, the stale machinations of Gothic horror sustain interest, primarily the otherworldly ambience of the moors, protruding at acute angles and concealing bottomless peat bogs and wild-eyed convicts. The density of the fog and incessant howling conjure a bone-chilling atmosphere, aided by the marriage of smoky whites and desolate greys that adorn the intricately painted backdrops.

Hints of German Expressionist influence reside within the heavy shadowing, hanging over shoulder and bedecking the corner of each room, coaxing jagged silhouettes from the faint flicker of candlelight. The séance at the film’s center benefits from this natural lighting, casting dancing flames on the frightened brows of its congregates and illuminating the spectral gesticulations of the oracle. Depth and space are also insinuated by the photography and set design, fashioning extensive drawing rooms and endless tracts of land in spite of the unconcealed scrims.

Regrettably, any triumph of technique is undercut by strained attempts at integrating romance, an aspect of the novel best left on the page or tackled by a picture with a prolonged runtime. At a lean 80 minutes, Sherlock Holmes is absent for nearly a third of the film’s length and visual depictions of letters and notes are frequently used to expedite the plot, leaving the consulting detective’s deductions to a hasty summation in the closing seconds. Drained of its exploratory essence, The Hound of the Baskervilles is slight and inert, a pretty picture bereft of intrigue and subtext.

The Hound of the Baskervilles (20th Century Fox, 1939)
Directed by Sidney Lanfield
Written by Arthur Conan Doyle (novel) and Ernest Pascal (screenplay)
Photographed by Peverell Marley

This Is Not a Film (2011, Jafar Panahi and Mojtaba Mirtahmasb)

This Is Not a Film, a documentary in the purest and least contrived sense, prefaces its quiet observations with a detailed list of the criminal charges facing its subject, distinguished filmmaker Jafar Panahi. Seen as a “vocal critic” of the Iranian government and opponent of orthodox values, the artist faces 6 years in prison and a 20-year ban from directing motion pictures and leaving the country, a verdict that would separate Panahi from his vocation and sever his ties to the global film community.

In an attempt to facilitate his creative impulses and forestall loneliness, Jafar and a contemporary, Mojtaba Mirtahmasb, monitor a day of house arrest, alternating between handheld camera and iPhone, photographing the mundanity of domestic life. The shots are routinely stationary, utilizing packs of cigarettes or chairs as support, unobtrusively studying the maestro as he washes dishes, takes phone calls, eats meals and browses the internet. The world outside of his apartment is completely concealed, only inferred by the sound of faint explosions, each burst amplifying Panahi’s anxiety as he thrashes out his forthcoming appeal. Civil unrest in the street below and the guarded nature with which our protagonist speaks evince the paranoia and fear that walk hand in hand in a totalitarian state, symbolizing the far-reaching assault on the individual made by an unchecked theocracy.  

As is customary for Iranian filmmakers, Panahi pulls back the curtain, candidly referencing his own on-screen artificiality and its relationship to his cinematic work with amateur performers. Communicating directly to the camera, Jafar draws parallels between the metaphorical mask he wears to hide his sorrow and the disguise worn by an actor as they create a character, fondly recalling the authenticity of a child thespian shedding her costume and storming off the set of The Mirror. Using his living room television as a reference point, Panahi expounds upon the personality imparted by untrained talent, crediting the spontaneity of location and instinct as the true source of cinematic inspiration.

Staging a read-through of an unfilmed script in the family room, Jafar and Mojtaba deliberate over lighting and saturation, permitting the process to inseminate the product. As they lay out the boundaries of the heroine’s bedroom with masking tape, the accused pours over the trail of rejected screenplays that led to his arrest, the lines on his face and weariness in his eyes exposing the sadness that his mouth dare not reveal. Resisting self-pity, Panahi joyfully paints his mise-en-scene and itemizes the progression of edits, the breadth of his vision evident from the specificity of his phrasing. His confidence wanes as he nears the final shot, a static image of a noose prepared for the neck of his despondent student, the restrictions of her gender and customs of her people too heavy a burden to bear.

The limitations of Jafar Panahi’s characters are his own and by documenting the commonplace, solely observing his day as it unfolds, he’s struck a bond between censored artist and persecuted proletariat. Using his camera as an instrument for civil disobedience, Panahi has taken the subtle aspersions of his fictional work to their zenith, risking his freedom to chastise despotism on a global scale.

This Is Not a Film (Palisades Tartan, 2011)
Written, Directed and Photographed by Jafar Panahi and Mojtaba Mirtahmasb

Cannibal Holocaust (1980, Ruggero Deodato)

Blurring the line between fact and fiction and demolishing the boundaries of good taste, Cannibal Holocaust is a barbed and malignant satire of broadcast journalism, manipulating viewers through an unpalatable mélange of zoosadism, rape and anthropophagy. If viewed objectively, it thrives as a polemic against Western neocolonialism, unflinching in its depiction of white reporters defiling and murdering their aboriginal subjects, leaving no transgression uncharted in the name of realism. One could argue that this single-minded pursuit of authenticity is courageous and that Ruggero Deodato’s assault on media immorality contains a certain self-reflexive integrity, but intellectualizing the experience does little to dilute the ferocity of the images. Cannibal Holocaust poisons the mind and, in a world of sanitized entertainment, is a dangerous artistic object.

Sporting an unanticipated structural complexity, particularly for rough exploitation fare, Deodato’s framework progresses from news exposé to cinematic jungle expedition to raw documentary footage, rotating film stock and photographic style along the way. The lion’s share of the narrative revolves around Dr. Harold Monroe, a New York University professor saddled with retrieving a missing filmmaking crew from “The Green Inferno,” ultimately uncovering the crimes against humanity captured in their humidity-damaged reels. As the sweat-soaked academic treks through the brush, wheezing from a combination of exhaustion and fear, a palpable menace permeates each image of untamed wild, stirring discomfort through ominous location footage and graphic clips of stomach-churning carrion.

We observe barbarous tribal rituals through Monroe’s eyes, voyeuristically peeking through the palm fronds as an adulterous woman is desecrated with a cylindrical piece of stone. The camera lingers as the sacrifice is dragged through the mud, gawking as she thrashes against the weight of her assailant, concentrating on the bloody pulp that coats the end of the jagged rock. Deodato’s violence speaks in the same visual language as pornography, emphasizing penetrative and vagocentric attacks, utilizing the female body as canvas for vulgar entertainment.

Though prurient methods are employed to shock the viewer, Deodato’s intentions may be less insidious than the ramifications, since his primary objective is to inspire panic, not subjugate a gender or race of people. His subtle moments outshine the more aggressive fare and lack its queasy depravity, building tension through the reciprocal anxiety shared by Monroe’s party and the “Tree People,” their inability to communicate serving as the crux of the conflict. The skillful application of symbol also benefits thematic concerns, intertwining Western technological fetish with biotic material, embodied in the deific shrine of flensed bone and optical lens that acts as a tomb for the disgraced documentary team.

Surviving the voyage and returning to New York with the bulk of the crew’s canisters, Monroe and an editor pore over the dailies, their appalled utterances blanketing the footage like the unseen voices on a commentary track. The black leader inserted between reels and intermittently waning diegetic sound add a fragmentary nature and textural roughness to the images, convincingly distressing each cell and paralleling the on-screen atrophy. Isolated in the editor’s chamber, the abhorrent behavior captured on film begins to overwhelm the senses, stimulating nausea through an unexpurgated violation of land, animal and human. As the so-called objective observers torch a village and fornicate on the incinerated remains of its inhabitants, a melancholy shroud envelops the forthcoming action, elevated by the quivering, regretful pulsations of Riz Ortolani’s score.  

Matching the sensationalistic visual display, Ortolani’s recurring theme pairs organic and inorganic sounds, marrying simple acoustic guitar and string to strangely touching and sorrowful waves of synthesizer. The pathos and emotional heft of the orchestral performance is sweeping, playing counterpoint to the film’s misanthropic perspective and imparting a gracefulness to an otherwise jarring work of art. Conversely, Ortolani’s other pieces, particularly those made to accompany gruesome makeup effects, are guttural and downtempo, ascending and descending between bubbling orbs of computerized dread.

The discomfort of shifting sonic tones and audio imperfection amplify the revolting frankness of the climax, stirring dizzied physical reactions through vivid passages of feticide, gang rape, castration and impalement. The simulations on display are suitably disgusting, but none rival the abomination of actual murder, exhibited by the production’s slaughter of no less than 5 animals before a leering camera eye. Zooming in to bask in the convulsions of the death rattle, a turtle is butchered in methodical steps before the lens, separated from its shell and left to wriggle as its innards pool on the sandy earth. Whether the ingestion of the turtle’s meat is validation enough for the sequence is up to the beholder, but any vegetarian (this critic included) would deem these tactics as an unethical and artless attempt at verisimilitude.

The yin yang of Cannibal Holocaust’s unscrupulous cruelty and technical innovation make for quite the paradox, placing an asterisk next to its designation as found-footage progenitor and unsung magnum opus. Its ethnocentrism can be vindicated by comparison, likening first-world prejudices to horror cinema’s history of disregard for mental illness (Psycho), religion (The Exorcist) and foreign relations (Dracula). Defending its deft editing, thematic patterning and willingness to repulse is just as equitable, but nonpartisan viewership and much ponderous discourse can’t obscure the inexcusable, permanently sullying an otherwise daring provocation.

Cannibal Holocaust (F.D. Cinematografica, 1980)
Directed by Ruggero Deodato
Written by Gianfranco Clerici
Photographed by Sergio D’Offizi

The Da Vinci Code (2006, Ron Howard)

Circumspect and overtly middlebrow, The Da Vinci Code flirts with the arcane and sacrilegious, hiding an intellectually-stimulating alternative to Christian history beneath the sheen of big-ticket spectacle. Theistic debate as fodder for popcorn cinema is peculiar enough to warrant interest, especially when exploring the hierarchy of the Catholic Church, but Ron Howard’s adaptation never aims to stimulate the mind or obliterate the senses, instead passing muted emotion and vague mystery off as commercial product.

Anchored by Robert Langdon (Tom Hanks), a professor of symbology with photographic memory and trauma-based claustrophobia, the narrative underplays any quirk of character to avoid hampering the mechanical progression of its plot, pivoting from point to point with minimal reflection. Swept up in a murder investigation during a Parisian speaking tour, Langdon is beckoned to decipher the symbols adorning a corpse’s chest, becoming the prime suspect after a sect of religious zealots finger him as an enemy of the faith. Aided by the victim’s granddaughter (Audrey Tautou) and hounded by a self-flagellating assassin (Paul Bettany), Langdon goes on a wild goose chase through secluded sacristies and twilight-lit galleries, pursuing answers in a search for the Holy Grail and the covert cabal that protects its secret.

Shifting between three storylines, all of which unravel concurrently, the script generates curiosity through intermittent passages of revisionist history, squandering opportunity through wordy exchanges that wrap trivialities in florid prose. This compositional murkiness and lack of purpose spills over into the photography, each shot cloaked in perpetual night and underlit, mistaking lack of visual detail for mystique. The color palette is just as washed-out as the art direction, utilizing soft hologram and gauzy blue filter to evoke the past, effectively sapping the medium’s primary vehicle for symbol of its vitality.

As for any controversy garnered by this disingenuous cash grab, it’s all whisked away in an uncluttered coda that further proliferates the ecclesiastical folklore the previous two acts aimed to subvert. Valid points made about sexuality and church-supported misogyny are surrendered once spoken by the chief antagonist, lending credence to the blindly faithful and admonishing the skeptical for traces of doubt. Having said that, I realize that believers rarely abandon their faith, even if presented with facts that impart logical explanations onto the supernatural. At its core, religion is more about comfort than practicality and Ron Howard is as guilty as his audience when it comes to embracing the easiest answer. Unfortunately for the rest of us, the only provocation in this quasi-cerebral potboiler is an interminable dullness, dousing the flames of dissent in a sea of moralist drivel.

The Da Vinci Code (Columbia Pictures, 2006)
Directed by Ron Howard
Written by Dan Brown (novel) and Akiva Goldsman (screenplay)
Photographed by Salvatore Totino

They Live by Night (1948, Nicholas Ray)

Lampooning the dewy-eyed optimism of cinematic romance, They Live by Night deceives its audience through a brief preamble of saccharine strings and youthful, flushed faces, only to yank the rug from under their naive sensibilities and send the film into rough terrain. Disguised as a heist picture, it coasts on vivid, geometric composition and authentic outlaw vernacular, overshadowing an intimacy shared by the principal players that eclipses the action sequences, standing in stark contrast to its affected bleakness. Taken as a whole, the resonating passages reside in the quiet conversations and eager embraces of our adolescent lovers, leaving the petty details of their transgressions to sway in the wind like a paper tiger.

Edward Anderson’s characters are damaged goods far before we meet them, racing down a dirt road in a stolen car, desperate to avoid apprehension and further incarceration. Nursing a sprained ankle, Bowie (Farley Granger), the youngest of the treacherous trio, is abandoned in the sticks as his partners retrieve a cache of “stashed dough,” left to fester alone in the pouring rain. Forsaken by parent and school system alike, the defiant 23-year-old forges on without an ally, paradoxically committing crime in an attempt to finance a criminal lawyer. His middle-aged collaborators are also convicted felons, fueling Bowie’s pipe dreams with an endless stream of pilfered cash, exploiting his good faith for profit and power.

Bowie’s eyes meet Keechie’s (Cathy O’Donnell) in a ramshackle safe house, the pair sharing a smoke over war stories of parental neglect and veiled physical abuse. Keechie is as weather-beaten as her male counterpart, despite being in her teens, aged by cigarillos and a viscous coat of inky soot. Regardless of the literal and figurative layers of grime that blanket her exterior, she’s frightened by Bowie’s murderous anecdotes, shuddering as he expounds upon the death of his father and the manslaughter charge that landed him in a detention center. Their budding sexuality and the catharsis of conversation establish a rock-solid bond between the couple, broken only by Bowie’s dedication to his role as getaway driver and Keechie’s premonition of a violent end.  

Rendering these obstructions through visual symbol, Nicholas Ray and photographer George E. Diskant shoot through the grates of fences, metal wire of car partitions and steely bars of motel bed posts, evoking a private prison cell for our damned devotees. Exterior photography also conveys distance and desperation, captured by crane shots that register the protagonists as inconsequential specks on the landscape, paralleling their sense of self worth. Travel is even implied through aesthetic detachment, shown exclusively by slow fade into the block letters of a coal-black map.

Though the forthcoming caper is methodical and filmed with aplomb, Ray seems indifferent to the machinations of the crime thriller, exuding an aloofness that counteracts the exposition surrounding the central setpiece. The twists, turns and tragic ends planned for the final reel are all a foregone conclusion, telegraphed well before they arrive on screen and well after we’ve connected the dots in our heads. His love story, lived on borrowed time, is far more stirring than his gangster picture, articulating infatuation through Keechie’s wide, toothy smile and Bowie’s nervous chatter and childlike inquiry. The pathos exuded by these newlyweds as they relinquish their future and fondly reminisce over the heartbeat of happiness they shared is devastating and deserving of a far more exhaustive motion picture.

They Live by Night (Warner Bros. Pictures, 1948)
Directed by Nicholas Ray
Written by Edward Anderson (novel), Nicholas Ray (adaptation) and Charles Schnee (screenplay)
Photographed by George E. Diskant

The Hitch-Hiker (1953, Ida Lupino)

“This is the true story of a man and a gun and a car.”

Masquerading as fact and closely adhering to the frankness of the opening title card, The Hitch-Hiker is sensational in its simplicity, conveying a detached, mechanical violence that smothers the flames of film noir’s romantic predispositions. Isolating the genre’s all-encompassing dread, director Ida Lupino exploits the paranoia and abject cruelty of our eponymous boogeyman, sneaking in a subtextual condemnation of masculinity that extols feminism through its absence of female characters. The finished product is a shrewd and succinct white-knuckler, triggering sweat-soaked panic via brutish games of dominance and agonizing pleas for survival.

Shot at ground level and carrying an ominous tune, the commencement only reveals the boots of the aggressor, capturing the sound of his pistol and the spring in his step as he extinguishes innocent lives. Our first visual introduction to Emmett Myers (William Talman) feels like a slap in the face, his paralyzed right eye and grizzled chin spinning towards us on a newspaper front page, flanked by the particulars of a criminal life that reads like an athlete’s stat sheet. Migrating south with plans to capitalize on the anonymity of Mexico’s seaside villages, Myers hitches a ride to San Felipe with two war buddies, warning his unsuspecting captives of the bounty of “dead heroes” littering the road behind them. As he leans in from the backseat, brandishing a loaded revolver, his face radiates as if hit by an interrogation lamp, symbolizing the figurative prison that ensnares the hard-bitten and barbarous.

Quarantined to the confines of a vehicle, the film spends the entirety of its 70-minute runtime on the road, keeping the tension at a boil as the tires kick up rocky gravel from the bone-dry desert floor. Editor Douglas Stewart acts as an accessory to the blistering pace, making sharp, abrupt cuts that maintain the overarching sense of anxiety, stealthily shifting from the first-person POV of a shotgun sight to the wrist of the shooter wiping sweat from his eyes. The use of expressive edits and images fills in the gaps left by the minimalistic scenario, employing shots of furrowed brows and trembling hands to uncover emotion excluded from the dialogue.

Shadow also plays a key role in conveying the desperation of each man’s struggle to endure, focusing on the thin, skeletal shape of their depleted bodies as they strike a silhouette on the vast wasteland. As the film leaves the relative safety of the car and ventures on foot toward the ocean, a grim logic comes into play, stressing the practicality of selfishness in the face of certain demise. Despite the stark pragmatism of the presentation, the unbearable torment takes on a certain poetic quality, reflected by the gentle strum of guitar on the soundtrack and the dirt-strewn faces of the victimized, certain only of death’s inevitability, oblivious to the exact moment they’ll topple into the void.

The Hitch-Hiker (RKO Radio Pictures, 1953)
Directed by Ida Lupino
Written by Daniel Mainwaring (story), Robert L. Joseph (adaptation), Ida Lupino (screenplay) and Collier Young (screenplay)
Photographed by Nicholas Musuraca

Out of the Past (1947, Jacques Tourneur)

Doomed from the get-go and traipsing far behind the eight ball, Jeff Markham (Robert Mitchum) is the quintessential tragic hero, desperately grasping at the Elysian life that lies out of reach, inadvertently tightening the noose around his neck as he wrestles to free himself from bondage. Out of the Past acts as his elaborately-designed coffin, fabricating suspense from a gradual decline, smirking as his futile attempts to isolate the past only further contaminate his future. It’s a bleak portrait painted by a master; a marvel of light and dark that gracefully hurtles towards a brick wall, beguiling with its passages of rhythmic dialogue and clarity of composition.

The level of visual detail maintained by Jacques Tourneur and his cinematographer, Nicholas Musuraca, is sublime, treating each image as a naturalistic painting, using illumination and darkness as shading to reflect nuances in personality and tone. Take the opening coffee shop conversation, which positions conflicting cultures on opposite sides of the frame, situating chatty townspeople at the bar beneath bright light, while an eavesdropping gangster, dressed in all black, casts a shadow over the glistening jukebox. The blocking of the shot conveys a secret message, as does each frame that follows, paralleling the themes of the narrative while enhancing the layers of mystery implemented by fits of pithy discourse and shrouded bits of sign language.

Not a scripted word is wasted on these formidable players, particularly Mitchum, who takes subtle pleasure in Markham’s quips, read with a certain nonchalance that foretells the character’s demise, conveyed by sad eyes and a knowing glance. His melancholy refugee lives under an assumed name in an unassuming California burg, operating a gas station and arousing the suspicion of local gossips, titillated by his roguish mystique and adulterous sex life. The facade of his rural homestead is ruptured by the arrival of the aforementioned nosey hoodlum, luring him back into the service of a menacing Nevada gambler and rekindling his obsession with the double-crossing dame that had led him astray.

Bound by a sense of honor unbecoming within his former social circle, Markham resigns himself to the card shark’s orders, trekking to a rendezvous in Lake Tahoe to collect his assignment. Traveling with his sweetheart in tow, Jeff unveils his former self in toto, divulging his Christian name, crooked profession and corrupt cohorts, pinning his hopes on Ann’s (Virginia Huston) clemency. Shots of the confession are restricted to the bucket seat of Jeff’s automobile, utilizing color contrast to define the space and assist the performances, shining dashboard light on Ann’s face to present her reactions, while cloaking Jeff’s visage in twilight to reflect apprehension.

The narrative backtracks as Markham recounts his downfall, his words lying atop a string of cityscapes, captured in a crafty montage that implies forward motion. The chronological kickoff finds our hero in the role of metropolitan private eye, aiding a bullet-riddled highroller swindled out of a small fortune by his main squeeze. Whit, the victim in question, played with a seamless fusion of menace and charm by Kirk Douglas, had lost money once before on a horse, but got even by putting the poor beast “out in a nice, green pasture.” Entrusted to collect the femme fatale and the misplaced dough, Jeff ventures to Acapulco on a hunch, secretly hoping to protect the fugitive from the threats of her creditor. Instead, he and the captivating Kathie Moffat (Jane Greer) engage in a game of seduction, one-upping each other in sexual insinuation, ultimately succumbing to their basest desires.

Tourneur orchestrates his own stratagem of suggestion, weaving unique patterns of images that imply the obscene, employing a succession of shots that signify sex through an overturned lamp, swinging door and torrent of rain. Yet, an alternate reading of this sequence could interpret the three snippets as harbingers of misfortune and Tourneur’s taste for duality lends credence to both expositions. Out of the Past fashions high art out of the atmospheric auteur’s strange bedfellows, marrying the romance of noir fantasy to the powder keg of post-war cynicism.

Out of the Past (Warner Bros. Pictures, 1947)
Directed by Jacques Tourneur
Written by Daniel Mainwaring (as Geoffrey Homes), James M. Cain (revisions) and Frank Fenton (revisions)
Photographed by Nicholas Musuraca

Pyaasa (1957, Guru Dutt)

Extolling the value of art and altruism in a capitalistic society, Pyaasa rails against the sanctimonious, exposing greed and hypocrisy through a scathing satire of celebrity and its accompanying insincerity. By virtue of its elegiac mouthpiece, Guru Dutt emphasizes humanistic attitudes, placing pride in dignity and equality over piety, subtextually endorsing apostasy from religion, social class and community. Its conceit is rather audacious and earnest for a musical, threatening to buckle under the weight of its themes, but its execution is unblemished, minimizing the frivolous fanfare as it wages an ideological war with ethical and financial poverty.

Finding little solace in the fever pitch of the publishing world, Vijay (played by director Guru Dutt), a political poet, relaxes in the tranquility of nature, allowing the visions before his eyes to mature into stanzas in his mind. His artistic habits deviate from the flaring tempers of the newspaper office and the sibling resentment in his mother’s parlor, a contrast defined by cinematographer V.K. Murthy through the limitless space of the outdoors and the claustrophobic clutter of interior shots. Lying in the vastness of his bucolic surroundings, Vijay overhears a woman reciting his poetry, enchanting him with a come-hither sway equaled in seductive power by the entrancing strum of sitar and clack of woodblock.

Vijay’s lyrics stir indefinable feelings in the compassionate prostitute undulating before him, reflecting the power of the written word to inspire empathy and catharsis. Unbeknownst to Gulabo (Waheeda Rehman), our aforementioned escort, she’s soliciting the author of the poem with her coquettish vocalizations, a claim she rebuffs as she sends the penniless wordsmith stumbling into the mud-caked streets. As blind rage fades into thoughtful clarity, Gulabo realizes that she had denied the author of her dearest romantic ballad, vowing to seek love from the tender poet and, through it, inspire personal rebirth.

Seeking a renewal of his own through creative expression, Vijay bares his soul in rhymed verse at a college reunion, bringing a past love to tears, but drawing ire from an audience eager for hollow entertainment. Dutt uses this uncomfortable performance piece as a means to expose audience indifference to art and the prescribed role of the artist in society, examining the apathy towards introspection in the industrialized India. Though his confident oration secures him a job at a publishing house, the director of operations refuses to print “the trash of a novice” and sequesters Vijay to a role of servitude.

In a moment of ironic coincidence common to Bollywood’s earliest melodramas, Vijay finds his bygone sweetheart, Meena (Mala Sinha), has married his treacherous superior, trading their collegiate love for the comfort of wealth. Dutt weaves the sorrow of their collective memory into montage, expressing the first flashes of affection, however fleeting, in rapid succession, demonstrating the couple’s inability to account for the impermanence of bliss through their joyous union in song. Another faded memory is captured in the blurred, glistening reflection of an elevator door, entering the subconscious through tight camera zoom and unhurried fade. This recollection feels like a fantasy, indulging in narcotic dances, bathed in flowing white cloth and buoyant balloons. Parisian lampposts and impenetrable fog add ambience to this extended reverie, but even in the most pleasant daydreams, love fades away.

Dutt realizes the emotional heft of the story and wisely interjects genial interludes, the best of which features an amateur masseuse, a jaunty tune and crafty tracking shot that traverses a vine-clad palisade. All passages of comic relief are seamlessly blended into the primary narrative, benefiting from editorial work that mirrors the musical pulsations and visuals that highlight spatial distance and craft metaphor through illuminating beams of light.

A drunken celebration encapsulates this marriage of the aural and ocular, representing intoxication through dizzying twirl, keeping rhythm through the rattling of bracelets and pulsating patter of a dancer’s feet. The pace gradually changes as the sound of a crying baby is added to the mix, creating discord and reflecting the lack of fluidity in the dancer’s motions. Though she fears for her ailing child, she must continue the dance, shackled by a perpetual need for money. Dutt implies that currency spurned the shift between a charitable India and a desperate one, abandoning a history of dignity for a future that  “auctions” pleasure to the highest bidder.

Conversely, a chosen few will shun the bondage of avarice and Guru Dutt finds a glimmer of hope in Gulabo, seeing her pro bono efforts to publish Vijay’s work as a divine act of selflessness. Art functions as a liberating force in an oppressed Indian and the words of Dutt’s martyred poet will live on, supplanting his temporary physical form. Whether the story is fictional or contains inklings of the autobiographical, Pyaasa is the greatest defense of fine art ever filmed, benefiting from Guru Dutt’s rich tapestry of aesthetic pleasures, skillfully employed to veil a caustic indictment of the material world.

Pyaasa (Guru Dutt Films Pvt. Ltd., 1957)
Directed by Guru Dutt
Written by Abrar Alvi
Photographed by V.K. Murthy

Bhoot Bungla (1965, Mehmood)

A pastiche of era-specific genres and ephemeral curiosities, Bhoot Bungla blends elements of American beach party films and fright flicks with Bollywood’s romantic tradition, approaching the youth market from all angles and with reckless abandon. Flashes of brilliance exist beneath the incoherence, fostered by lively dance numbers and cartoonish characterizations, but no single idea is fully realized, floundering beneath the weight of a scattershot screenplay. The end product is ungainly, if innocuous, best suited for curious viewers with insomnia and low expectations.

Details of the exposition are bewildering from the first shot, capturing a dying man as he collapses atop a staircase without preamble or visual clarification. Narration eventually reveals that the murder was unsolved and the victim’s descendants still occupy his “bungalow,” grappling with the mental illness imbued by the cursed grounds. Old chestnuts of horror’s past peak out from the mansion’s dark corridors: eerie blasts of off-key organ, menacing nocturnal footsteps, glacial breezes and a grotesque domestic staff. The film teeters into black humor in its use of prop and makeup, arming its ridiculously hideous gardener with a razor-sharp, protruding cuspid that closely resembles the fangs of a vampire. Sadly, the film leaves all of its panache in the costume department, treating its murder sequences as road bumps in the way of its forthcoming musical numbers.

Director and leading man Mehmood indulges in the non-violent tropes of macabre cinema, recycling stylistic cues from House on Haunted Hill, particularly its theatricality and penchant for jump scares. Sequences shot in the eponymous haunted house engage when allowed to blossom, particularly as characters are forced into confined spaces and besieged by plumes of artificial fog, swinging shutters and pitch-black abysses. Bouts of comic relief even function in this restrictive setting, imparting a dizzying, funhouse lunacy to a song and dance boasting hoofers in skeletal pajamas, diabolical surgeons and growling ornamental tigers.

The only thing holding back the terror is Mehmood’s insatiable desire to shift gears before a setpiece builds steam, either to maintain a furious pace or force in every disparate ingredient from a cluttered script. The extraneous “Beach Club Competition” segments bring all momentum to a screeching halt, devoting nearly 30 minutes to a desperate rendition of “The Twist” and undeveloped intergender rivalry. Though it may be impossible to deny the musical passages their bravado, particularly the outlandish West Side Story appropriation, they’re as distracting as the central mystery’s red herrings and just as malnourished. The divergent narrative threads are begging for the restraint of an accomplished filmmaker, one astute enough to trim the excess fat from a gratuitous and shapeless hodgepodge.

Bhoot Bungla (Mumtaz Films, 1965)
Directed by Mehmood
Written by Ranjan Bose (screenplay), Mehmood (story) and Akhtar-Ul-Iman (dialogue)
Photographed by Dara Engineer

Awara (1951, Raj Kapoor)

Confident and fluid, effortlessly navigating precarious shifts in tone and genre, Raj Kapoor’s Awara encapsulates the essence of Bollywood’s Golden Age, generating emotion through the aesthetic contrast between its humanistic narrative and visual extravagance. As oxymoronic as a musical about a lovelorn street urchin sounds on paper, the bombast of the production manages to usher the travails of our indignant bandit to the heights of Greek Tragedy, fashioning his struggle with illegitimacy into a microcosm of India’s rift between its nobility and the impoverished that kneel at their feet. The end product is as innovative as it is poignant, marrying elements of film noir, melodrama and Hollywood spectacle into a cogent examination of Machiavellianism and the oppression of the Dalit caste.

Inserting a melancholy thread into the text through a frame story, the film opens with our protagonist, Raj (director and producer Raj Kapoor), confined to a cage, overcome by despair as he awaits trial for attempted murder. He is defended by a female law clerk returning an undisclosed favor, her youth barely disguising aplomb and self-assurance, captured in tight zoom as she vigorously interrogates the accuser. Coincidentally, Rita (Nargis), the virginal defense attorney, had studied under the victim on the stand, Justice Raghunath (Prithviraj Kapoor), and humbly requests his blessing before conducting her cross examination. Raghunath is a dour puritan, masking a secret beneath his chaste exterior that will unravel as he expounds upon his career in criminal justice. A torrent of betrayal is “rooted in the past” and the camera closes in on his anxious brow as narration sets forth a slow transition into rippling waves and recent history.

Foreshadowing a future of misfortune, an oarsman and band of field workers converge in a rhythmically infectious cautionary ballad, serenading a younger version of the judge as he lies in a ligneous raft with his adoring wife. The backlit silhouettes of the farmers obscure the sun, cloaking the light in an ominous haze, each of their words warning against a mythical thief known simply as “Jagga” (K.N Singh). Born an honest man, Jagga was accused of rape because of his low breeding and ostracized from his community and occupation. In retaliation, the once noble creature transforms into the embodiment of vice and deceit, kidnapping Raghunath’s wife to inspire doubt about the source of her pregnancy. Poisoned by the gossip of his neighbors and an overwhelming lust for power, the judge falls for Jagga’s gambit and banishes his wife to the slums before she can “bear the fruit of her sins,” this infirmity epitomized by a fast cut to his frame cowering beneath a dangling baby bootie.

Questions of honor, particularly in relation to rape and monogamy, clash with the film’s depiction of the intellectual and individualistic Rita, epitomizing the divide between India’s conservative past and its inevitable future. Ideologically, Raj Kapoor is a progressive, injecting his politics into the feature in a visual manner, allowing a thunderstorm to mirror his discontent. Prior to the judge’s dismissal of his innocent wife, Kapoor captured shots of the slandered spouse thrashing in her bed, reproducing a nightmare through rapid-fire edits and alternating angles, reflecting her emotional strain and fear. Raghunath’s suspicion and indignation are paralleled by the tempest, shot at a low-angle and in extreme closeup, intrusive enough to capture the inky circles surrounding his eyelids. As he casts his bride into the streets, the thunder crackles in anger, the curtains and chandelier feverishly swaying in stereo with the ecstatic drama.

In a flash of ingenuity, Raj Kapoor switches protagonists and disposition for the second half, manifesting life on the other side of the tracks through the eyes of Raghunath’s misbegotten son. Each lead operates in his own milieu, Raj residing in the sun-drenched streets of Bombay and the honorable judge resting in the lap of luxury, carefully concealing the darkness that lies beyond the facade of wealth and power. The remainder of the film deals in happenstance, aligning these disparate characters through chance meetings that feel natural, as if predestined. Taking on the lead role, Kapoor brings a Chaplin-esque physicality to his charming grifter, tempering bouts of slapstick with snippets of American slang and crafty con games, lightening the mood and providing the audience with a relatable male character.

Drawn to his father by opposing forces, Raj struggles to balance his fondness for Rita, a primary school classmate and current infatuation, with his obligation to crime kingpin and surrogate father figure, Jagga. Through this conflict, Kapoor illustrates the trappings of poverty, manifesting the hopelessness of the destitute as they attempt to succeed in a world designed for their failure. Circumstances don’t necessarily provide Raj with his happy ending, but the chemistry he shares with Rita is palpable and fulfilling, modestly captured in the soft caress of her dress with his fingers, a sensation that sends her twirling in rapturous song.

The lavish odes to their devotion function as more than an accompaniment to the action or entertaining digression, operating as the driving force behind the narrative, expounding upon the emotions of the characters and imbuing meaning onto the mise en scène. Kapoor’s clean, photographic storytelling uses bursts of light and shadow to stimulate mood, forging symbols in gorgeous black and white, arousing a sense of danger with the setting sun and opaque, cumulus clouds. Sensuality is implied in each embrace, insinuated by propulsive musical numbers that convey passion through flowing robes and the unseen carnal actions that accompany them. By bridging social class through his star-crossed lovers, Kapoor stresses a society that separates matters of the heart and the letter of the law, sneakily subverting the status quo through reckless romance and bewitching fits of hasta mudra.

Awara (R.K. Films, 1951)
Directed by Raj Kapoor
Written by Khwaja Ahmad Abbas (screenplay/story) and V.P. Sathe (story)
Photographed by Radhu Karmakar

Very Bad Things (1998, Peter Berg)

Delicately balancing between horror and farce, Very Bad Things mines for laughs in a shallow grave, daring its audience to chuckle through realistic and unconscionable scenes of dismemberment and violence. The shock of the material overshadows a keen ear for the ironic and many intuitive correlations between bloodsport and genuine brutality, but don’t confuse this gruesome little number for a high-minded declaration of moral superiority. Instead, indulge your inner sociopath by snickering at the succession of transgressive sight gags, many of which exude sophistication and superlative comic timing, in spite of their ethical turpitude.

The pacing and performances on display are playfully excessive, maintaining an exaggerated mood to mitigate the conduct of the characters, lending a madcap disposition to their egregious actions. Even the everyday is embellished, illustrated by a feverish tête-à-tête over wedding vendor checks and the slam of a rubber stamp on marriage licenses in the opening scene. As our betrothed couple, Kyle (Jon Favreau) and Laura (Cameron Diaz), squabble over the groom’s forthcoming bachelor party and a battery of invoices, we get the sense that we’re observing a high-stakes sitcom, one that treats the mundane as fodder for misanthropic satire. Writer/Director Peter Berg sets this jaundiced tone in the first thirty minutes, gradually heightening the tension to test the audience, baiting us into accompanying his protagonists as they spiral into depravity.

The stag party sequence opens under the guise of cliché, beguiling with fades, wipes and double exposures, drumming up energy by way of Las Vegas’ superficial shimmer and garish, music video-inspired camera calisthenics. The bleary-eyed philosophizing of the groomsmen is equally distracting, lending little to the narrative aside from illustrating their intoxication and lack of introspection. Ironically, their forthcoming collective sin imparts personality and inspires catharsis, ushering their strengths and weaknesses to the forefront and, in turn, making them more human.

Trouble arises for our inebriated revelers with the entrance of their entertainment; a scantily-clad escort whose pelvic thrusts mirror the punches and grapples of combat emanating from the adjacent television set. As his partners in crime pantomime the on-screen battle in their deluxe suite, Michael (Jeremy Piven), fueled by cocaine and camaraderie, vigorously fornicates with the hired help, forcing her head into the tiled wall of the bathroom and unwittingly spearing her neck on a towel hook as he reaches climax. Surveying the scene, illustrated only through detached overhead shot, the party of five cower in fear at the sight of the suspended prostitute, trailing her corpse with their eyes as it falls to the marble floor with a bone-crunching thud.

After a few beats of frenzied terror, the gang puts her fate to a vote, agreeing to inhume the remains in the vastness of the desert, per the suggestion of the calculating and phlegmatic Robert Boyd. Christian Slater plays this insidious character as a fast-talking pragmatist, veiling his disdain for humanity beneath polarized shades, a precariously dangling cigarette and shit-eating grin. Observing his exhilaration as he plans the perfect crime is a sight to behold, conveying mixed emotions as he coaches his co-conspirators to abandon the “moral and ethical implications” and treat the lifeless body as a “109 pound problem.” Yet, this moral ambiguity fades as Boyd thrusts a corkscrew into the chest of an inquisitive security guard, blurring the line between innocuous comedy and terroristic affront to conventional morality.

This contradiction hits its apex as the accessories barricade the dying guard in the bathroom, ignoring his blood-curdling screams as they force their weight against the quaking doorframe. Peter Berg casts the tribulations of his panicked murderers in a comedic light, juxtaposing this jocularity against the desperation of the moribund watchman’s death gasps, using their selfish dread as the catalyst for the spate of catastrophes that lie ahead. This polarity makes for a twisted logic, one that spawns a palpable, unnerving discomfort, but it ultimately serves its purpose, providing these vapid characters with scenarios as ludicrous as their lack of conscience. The resulting picture is as vivacious as it is macabre, every bit of its droll gallows humor created with the utmost levity and bad taste.

Very Bad Things (PolyGram Pictures, 1998)
Written and Directed by Peter Berg
Photographed by David Hennings

Bachelorette (2012, Leslye Headland)

Steadfast in its attempts to offend an already jaded audience, Bachelorette mercilessly skewers an assortment of taboo topics, assuming that ribald anecdotes and vaginal jargon will sound novel when spouted in a female cadence. It’s an incredibly pessimistic film, one that figures friendship for veiled contempt and vulgarity for brutal honesty, never once taking its characters to task for their sociopathic conduct or upper middle class self-loathing. The end product is at once naive and cynical, wishing away deep-rooted psychological maladies over the course of an unruly eve, but lacking the courage to admit that those same disorders are fueling the manic narrative.

Defining its protagonists in the simplest of terms, the pre-credit sequence bonds our leads in narcissism, splicing us into a cellular pow-wow that exists only to eviscerate a full-figured friend in regards to her betrothal. Beneath every gibe about weight and personality, a sense of longing emerges from these superficial and substance-addled mademoiselles, unveiled through accidental revelations of inadequacy and resentment. As hints of depth peek out from beneath the nihilistic sheen, the credits roll and propel the film six months into the future, abandoning the flirtation with three-dimensionality.

Reconvening for the bachelorette party, the modestly-named “B-Faces” sabotage the festivities, showing their open disdain for the bride by casually referencing her bulimia at the rehearsal dinner and donning her gown as if it were the sack in a three-legged race. When the fabric tears, the trio is forced to scour Manhattan in the dead of night for a seamstress, an assignment that doubles as an excuse to entangle the ladies in a contest of moral bankruptcy with the equally unscrupulous groomsmen. The only element of the frenetic rising action that doesn’t feel flippant or perfunctory is the interplay between Lizzy Caplan and Adam Scott, portraying ex-lovers bearing the brunt of a hasty abortion and the relationship that dissolved in its wake. Regrettably, whispers of abandonment and drug dependency are given short shrift, never developed beyond a punchline and prostituted as story beats leading to a stilted sexual reconciliation.

For all of its earnest aspirations, Bachelorette amounts to nothing more than salacious junk food, falling back on pop ephemera as shorthand for emotional intelligence and cultural cool. The concept of a blue comedy helmed by a female auteur is exhilarating and Kristen Wiig’s Bridesmaids bested the boys in the tightrope walk between raunch and resonance, developing a kinship between the characters and audience through candid fits of hilarity. Writer-director Leslye Headland was obviously inspired by Wiig’s prose, but misheard her voice, confusing obscenity for feminism and intercourse for intimacy. If only she had taken her own advice and realized that “You can’t just fuck things into being better.”

Bachelorette (The Weinstein Company, 2012)
Written and Directed by Leslye Headland
Photographed by Doug Emmett

Bachelor Party (1984, Neal Israel)

A juvenile concoction of slapstick, shock and sex, Bachelor Party wears the excesses of its era like a badge, cramming in every clichéd conflict and obligatory setpiece that made 80’s cinema amiable and intolerable in equal measure. The components are certainly in place for a raucous comedy, generating goodwill through breakneck pacing and mammocentric visual motif, but the assembly is haphazard and pedestrian, exposing its ineptitude the moment Tom Hanks and Tawny Kitaen aren’t drawing focus.

Ad-libbing his way through the lead role, Hanks plays Rick Gassko as the sarcastic life of the party, furnishing the character with enough snarky material to keep the audience rapt during bouts of nonsensical monologue. He and his gang of cronies are frat boys without diplomas, coasting through monotonous day jobs, fueled only by the thrill of beer-soaked evenings and dreams of carnal embrace. Gathering at a pub for a monumental announcement, Rick sheepishly divulges his plans for marriage, sending waves of dissonance through his posse of perpetual bachelors. The cacophony is finally broken by the most stentorian of the group, shouting a rallying cry of masculine potency: “Let’s have a bachelor party with chicks and guns and fire trucks and hookers…!”

Anyone familiar with the rules of the game will recognize that discord is necessary to propel a story this unsophisticated forward. The writing staff, realizing their folly, decided to go for broke and include three trite sources of conflict: disapproving parents, a scheming ex-spouse and extracurricular restrictions (i.e. no hookers). Despite being the source of all of Rick’s distress, Debbie, our prospective bride, is a full-bodied character, brought to life by Tawny Kitaen in a performance that matches Hanks’ vivacity with equal charisma and attitude. The pair also share a palpable chemistry, contradicted only by the superficial relationships struck between the supporting cast, all of whom seem forced in from different motion pictures. The most glaring example is Cole, the aforementioned sociopath that had previously dated the emotionally incompatible Debbie, who is necessary to the story only as a hurdle for Rick and as the brunt of many feeble jokes.

In spite of Cole’s bribes and the advances of his female guests, Rick survives his hotel suite shindig unscathed, maintaining his role as archetypal good guy. His groomsmen, on the other hand, bed multiple partners, pop pills, deface property and act as accomplices to bestiality, all of which curiously occurs offscreen. Racial humor seems to be the only taboo topic the writing staff is willing to broach, leaving behind several missed opportunities, particularly a transgendered sexual encounter that deserved more than a perfunctory “pee standing up” punchline.

A smattering of sight gags teeter toward the callous, but any violation is minor enough to be glossed over by Tom Hanks’ infectious energy. He’s the sole survivor of Bachelor Party, rising above the tackiness of the production through waggish dance floor gyrations, writhing in spasms on a couch solely for our amusement. Without his charms, this party would be a dismal affair, overwhelmed by woeful post-synchronization and a deafening soundtrack, so saxophone heavy that it drowns out the rare attempt at substance.

Bachelor Party (20th Century Fox, 1984)
Directed by Neal Israel
Written by Bob Israel (story), Neal Israel (screenplay) and Pat Proft (screenplay)
Photographed by Hal Trussell

Japón (2002, Carlos Reygadas)

Shouldering the weight of contradictions that would define the Reygadian corpus, Japón bears the mark of a director’s maiden voyage, laboring beneath a sophomoric fascination with brutality that clashes with an otherwise observational and stoic style of filmmaking. The fluidity of the point-of-view camera work and stirring upsurge of operatic vocals, ingeniously piped in through the protagonist’s headphones, yield sublime results, but every attempt at transcendence is undercut by an egotistical disregard for misery, one hell-bent on illustrating suffering by administering pain.

Taking cues from Abbas Kiarostami’s Taste of Cherry, Carlos Reygadas exhibits the disparity between the psychological and the ecological, tarnishing the virility and abundance of the environment by presenting it through a mud-caked windshield, paralleling the mindset of his suicidal protagonist. Travelling through the gorges that rest beneath imposing stretches of mountain, the anonymous transient (Alejandro Ferretis) struggles on the slate beneath his feet, his cane barely holding his weakened frame upright as the camera languidly vacillates behind his head. The chain of slowly fading images that document his journey create the most beautiful juxtapositions, pairing the chalky harshness of the terrain with the amorphous bluster of the wind as it rustles through the trees.

Discourse between characters is directed toward the camera eye, though the impatient lens wanders as they speak, precipitating the motion of the drifter or fixating on the spontaneous, capturing children wading in a murky slough or a pool of blood splashing from a hog’s throat. The impulsive nature of the first reel wanes as the nameless man obtains shelter from Ascen (Magdalena Flores), an elderly widow whose religious devotion echoes the implications of her forename. As she kneels in prayer beneath a humble shrine, Reygadas fashions a succession of Christian iconography, the glowing beams surrounding the face of Jesus Christ coming to life in the firelight. Her sorrow even mirrors the Easter pageant of the Biblical New Testament, the indignities imposed by her nephew’s greed and boarder’s concupiscence resembling the betrayals of Judas and Peter.

Reygadas forges a marriage between sexuality and divinity by brute force, affixing Ascen’s account of her incarcerated nephew’s lust for the Madonna to a master shot of the vagabond vigorously pleasuring himself. The radical shift in tone is jarring and intended to provoke, but never exploit, emphasizing the burgeoning libido in our previously crestfallen protagonist. The lineage of images that establish this rebirth carry an intangible exoticism, wafting between shots of horses embracing in coital bliss and the nameless tramp sniffing the collar of a laundered white shirt. This wellspring of passion also precipitates a renewed sense of empathy, intertwining our unlikely couple in sexual congress and equipping the lead with steely resolve, inspiring him to challenge the recalcitrant nephew’s claim to Ascen’s stone barn.

Reygadas’ sympathies also lie with the altruistic matron and he dedicates the closing passages of the film to her silent ascension above the terra firma. As her head sways back and forth from the motion of a ramshackle tractor, the slightest of smiles washes over her weathered visage, her ailing spirit accepting joy as it prepares to vacate the body. Through Ascen’s eyes, the modesty of the soil is elevated to an angelic grace, ascribing mystical properties to the human experience, despite the transgressions of her masculine counterparts. Carlos Reygadas blurs the line between art and reality through the wrinkles on Flores’ face and the guileless essence of her performance, but, like his leading man, he never atones for personal improprieties, surmising that aesthetic precision will distract from the animal sacrifices made to his artistic vanity.

Japón (Palisades Tartan, 2002)
Written and Directed by Carlos Reygadas
Photographed by Diego Martínez Vignatti and Thierry Tronchet

Post Tenebras Lux (2012, Carlos Reygadas)

Harnessing the elegance of his muse, Carlos Reygadas opens Post Tenebras Lux in the organic space beneath the dusky sky, girded by viridescent mountains awash in a balmy, pink glow. Approximating the spontaneous beauty of Silent Light’s daybreak, Reygadas tempers the harmony of the landscape through in-camera manipulation, warping the corners of his images, lending each picture a narcotic, rippled haziness. His eye is content to capture beauty free of diegetic restraint, permitting the strand of images to possess an incongruity that obscures any meaning and mires the narrative in the cerebral. Multiple viewings and inexhaustible patience will lay his metaphors bare, but the propensity for cruelty overshadows the singularity of Reygadas’ vision.

An inkling of plot is broached by the entrance of a luminous demon, jarring in its dissonance to the serenity of the commencement and glowing red like a flaming ember. The horned beast creeps into a cottage, staining the kitchen in a blush hue as it precariously swings its toolkit and protruding genitalia. As it peers down at the characters in slumber, the action abruptly cuts to a family stirring from sleep, the patriarch warmly tossing his infant son above his head. Despite initial implications of altruism, parallels are to be drawn between Juan (Adolfo Jiménez Castro), the father, and the scarlet devil, illustrated by his temperament around his canine companions, one of which he recklessly beats in the abdomen with his balled-up fist. Though this sequence succeeds in painting its character as unsympathetic and occurs primarily off-screen, the yelps of the puppy as it endures the attack are excruciating and realistic, distracting enough in their credibility to stir up questions of morality in the minds of the viewing audience.   

This callousness extends beyond a penchant for animal abuse, spilling over into Juan’s relationship with his subjugated spouse, Natalia (Nathalia Acevedo). Sojourning to a French sex spa at Juan’s insistence, the reluctant wife allows herself to be disrobed and coveted by a group of revellers, engaging in sex with another man as Juan objectifies her naked form. Reygadas drains the scene of eroticism, despite its frankness, even providing a respite for the frightened Natalia in the form of a matriarchal figure, one who rubs her temples and whispers in placid tones. The magnanimity of this good samaritan is antithetical to Juan’s selfishness, his corrupt nature poisoning connections between family and environment.

Our protagonist confronts the distance he’s struck between himself and the natural order as he lies on his deathbed, reflecting on the simplicity of childhood and the loss of innocence that accompanies adulthood. The most affecting passage of the film accompanies this realization, focusing on Natalia as she performs Neil Young’s “It’s A Dream” on piano, the pair singing in unison, their monotone vocalizations demonstrating the grace in human imperfection. As a single tear trickles down Natalia’s face, the camera zooms in on a portrait of an iceberg adrift in an waveless sea, personifying the isolation at the core of human existence, only surmountable through compassion and temperance.  

Post Tenebras Lux concludes with kinetic shots of a youth rugby match, the camera standing beneath a club as it converges in huddle, a spirited player shouting, “They’ve got individuals, we’ve got a team.” His words are the metaphorical center of Reygadas’ work, stressing a unity and balance that evade his principal characters, but are embodied within the sanctity of children, animals and the landscape. This purity is evoked through photographic vignettes that speak without words, eliciting a toddler’s wonder as she scampers alongside a herd of cows and defining love through a grandmother’s gentle tap on her grandson’s forearm. It’s a poetic work constructed of contrasts, equal parts enticing and revolting, marred only by its architect’s inability to discern between sadism and realism.

Post Tenebras Lux (Strand Releasing, 2012)
Written and Directed by Carlos Reygadas
Photographed by Alexis Zabe

Silent Light (2007, Carlos Reygadas)

Patient and willfully obscure, Carlos Reygadas’ body of work requires audience participation through reverent observation, compelling the viewer to linger and ponder stationary images, scarcely moving the eye of the camera beyond a glacial tracking shot. The infrequent edits and restrictive pace align the composition to Silent Light’s subject, channelling the perspective of Mexico’s Mennonite community instead of exploiting it, constructing art that is free of illusion and bound by simple truth, generating traces of the divine amidst the mundane. The viewer awakens to the conceits of the film through its introduction, a luminous sunrise, adapting to the flow of the narrative and visual language by way of extended metaphor, surrendering to a meditative and defiantly spiritual form of cinema.

As the camera stares at the tenebrous sky, transfixed by gleaming constellations, reverberations of insects and cattle chime in from the unseen vastness, acting as a soundtrack for five minutes of stargazing. Motion is slight, as if lulled by the repetitive chirps and oneiric stillness, arcing only to convey the immensity of space, gradually seceding to dawn through time-lapsed footage. The tranquility of the image overwhelms as soft blues and yellow beams of sunlight build on the horizon, the camera sleepwalking towards the illumination, parting the tree line to gaze directly at the burnt orange texture of daybreak.

The resonance of the exterior noise infiltrates the kitchen of an achromatic farmhouse, paralleled by the ticking pendulum of a clock that hangs above the doorframe. Speaking in Low German, a family of eight prepares breakfast, uniting through prayer and quiet contemplation. An unsaid distance emerges between the adults at the table, expressed through mournful glances passed from dutiful wife to inexpressive husband. As Esther (Miriam Toews) and the children rise from their seats, she places a hand on her husband’s shoulder and implores him to rest alone for a moment in the sparse dining room. Ceasing the clicking of the clock and slumping back into his wooden chair, Johan (Cornelio Wall) begins to weep, quietly hyperventilating under the weight of his catharsis as the camera gracefully edges towards him.

The rhythm is sedate and phlegmatic on the surface, but never dull, holding the viewer rapt in the innate elegance of the color palette and sound design. Reygadas allows lens flare and distortion to impart realism, conjuring remembered experiences of rippling wind and the pant of a contented dog through hollow, echo-laden vibrations. The photography channels intimacy through an analogous proximity, resting on the shoulders of Johan and his mistress, Marianne (Maria Pankratz), as they share a clandestine tryst at the apex of a mountain. Pink and yellow reflections sparkle on the film as the couple engages in a passionate kiss, the effect precipitated by the harshness of the sun’s rays captured in tight close up and the bursts of color that blossom by drifting in and out of focus.

There’s a modesty to the sexuality depicted on screen, revealed only in faint glances and tender embraces. The ripples of rain dribbling into a puddle and warm glow seeping through venetian blinds draw cinematographer Alexis Zabe’s attention during lustful passages, his eye wafting back to the matter at hand to analyze the contours of Marianne’s face and pool of sweat accumulating on her neck as she reaches climax. The emotional impact of their affair is far more vital to the narrative than the details of their fornication and Marianne’s reluctance to sustain the liaison inspires Johan to confess the sum of his faults to the dejected Esther. The pair say adieu in secret, Marianne stealing a graze of Johan’s wrist behind his back as the comical ballad playing on television transforms into an elegy for their forbidden love.

Wracked with guilt, Johan divulges the extent of his relationship with Marianne to Esther during a leisurely drive, inspiring his ordinarily serene wife to call his paramour “a damn whore.” As torrents of precipitation ricochet off of the sedan’s roof, Esther clasps her chest and persuades her husband to pull over, rushing into the woods in a nauseous and depressive state. Frantically sobbing as she picks the loose bark from a sodden tree, Esther removes her shawl, symbolically lifting the veil of silence and unmasking her sorrow, plunging to the wet ground as the pain in her breast reaches its zenith. The camera keeps its distance as Johan discovers her body and bellows at the sky, suggesting our inability to fathom his misery and reflecting the distance between the couple prior to Esther’s coronary episode.

Shots of her casket, constructed of linens and flanked by white candles in silver candelabras, are a facsimile of the closing images of Carl Theodor Dreyer’s Ordet and the similitude between both funeral sequences is indisputable. Yet, Ordet stressed the power of faith, while Carlos Reygadas’ film perfectly elucidates its title, illustrating the magnificence in plain sight and the unseen motivation that exists on the periphery. Silent Light manages to embrace the secular while invoking the supernatural, indulging in the majesty of the physical world and finding credence in celestial influence.

Silent Light (Palisades Tartan, 2007)
Written and Directed by Carlos Reygadas
Photographed by Alexis Zabe

Ran (1985, Akira Kurosawa)

Propelled by airy woodwind dirges and a palpable queasiness, Ran illustrates its foreboding narrative through pronounced use of color, personifying fear and betrayal through custard yellow and fiery red. The expressiveness of the makeup, which mirrors the theatrical nature of the performances, stresses a blackness around the eyes and shadowing on the brow, drawing grief to the surface on the visage of our tragic protagonist. The photography is just as expressive, sparking transitions in the storyline through shots of drifting clouds, blossoming like lilies atop the azure sky in placid moments and pouring out like black ink over the heavens as glory fades and conceit overshadows familial allegiance.

Set in Feudal Japan, Ran opens in a state of harmonious silence, speaking volumes about its characters through studied observance, spying them as they rest in a lush meadow and the mild winds rustle through long blades of grass. Lord Hidetora (Tatsuya Nakadai), the aged, but virile, patriarch of the Ichimonji Clan, celebrates a boar hunt with his sons and political leadership from neighboring territories, savoring the performance of his hōkan against the backdrop of a forested mountain range. In an uncharacteristic moment of vulnerability, the great warrior falls asleep, allowing the bowl of sake to slide from his grasp and onto the moist ground. He awakens in a state of panic, recalling a dream that placed him in an open field, out of reach of his children and most trusted advisors.

Accepting the “ravages of age,” the warlord surrenders his empire to his eldest boy, Taro (Akira Terao), secure that the peace fostered during his tenure will continue throughout his son’s reign. Demonstrating the bond of family, Hidetora teaches a lesson to his offspring, having each snap a single arrow and then allowing them to struggle to crack a bundle of three. Made uneasy by Hidetora’s bewildered and ebullient state, Saburo (Daisuke Ryû), his youngest and most outspoken son, attempts to muzzle his father’s soul-bearing monologue, only to be chastised by his groveling elder siblings. Emphasizing the lack of “fidelity” between the brothers, Saburo defiantly breaks the sheaf over his knee, provoking an extreme reaction from his bemused patriarch. In a state of unbridled rage, the monarch banishes his insolent successor, unaware that the discourteous display was intended to safeguard the clan from insidious interlopers.

The diegetic sound employed during the opening sequence, incorporating crickets, birds and the aforementioned wind, demonstrates the contrast between the natural order and the belligerent men that inhabit the Earth, their dominion over the environment tarnishing the terrain. Thematically, this lust for supremacy and the suffering that follows parallel the source of Ran’s inspiration, William Shakespeare’s King Lear, both works placing emphasis on the impermanence of power and the futility of man’s resistance to death. Akira Kurosawa’s adaptation, however, openly embraces irony, revealed through Hidetora’s swift transition from nobleman to transient and the tragic funeral procession that transpires in the final reel.

Within hours of the hunt, Hidetora is pressured into signing a “covenant” with the self-serving Taro, emasculating the once formidable master before his court. Ashamed and ailing, Hidetora seeks asylum with Jiro (Jinpachi Nezu), his middle child, but discovers that the burgeoning political alliances between his kith and kin can only function through his submission. As he progressively detaches from reality and wanders the plains seeking shelter, the lord is forced to seek clemency from his exiled son, realizing that the consequences of his misgivings have come home to roost. The glare of the blistering sun and screeching of birds overhead befit the distress that overwhelms Hidetora’s face, his mouth agape in horror as he fathoms his utter folly.

Unfortunately, the dejected Saburo has taken up residency with Lord Fujimaki (Hitoshi Ueki), leaving his vacant castle open for siege, a scheme hastily orchestrated by his conniving siblings. As they storm the fortress, natural sound fades, lending an operatic, ceremonial tone to the choreographed brutality. Photographed at dusk, the battlefield bears a striking resemblance to the abattoir, as dirt rustled by charging horse hooves and pools of cherry red blood blanket the strewn corpses like an afghan. Arrows and bullets careen through the air, arcing into windows of the stronghold as Hidetora attempts to thwart the charging soldiers, breaking the blade of his sword on the first swing.

The clash for Saburo’s castle is the film’s centerpiece, both as an uncompromising vision of war and final stage of Hidetora’s psychological collapse. Scrambling in a last ditch effort to protect himself, the feeble royal is stranded without a weapon in a burning tower, the profound metaphor of his impotence dancing beside him as flickering orange flames. He stumbles out of the citadel in a daze, the armor clad foot soldiers parting “like the sea for Israel,”* flanking him in malevolent shades of red and yellow, symbols of the bloodshed and fire that swept over the palace walls. From that moment forward, Hidetora is a ghost, roaming through the mist without a domicile, existing only as a pawn in the wargames conducted by his rapacious progeny.

Ran is an astounding display of directorial confidence, capturing the fury of imperfect men and immensity of battle with a delicate hand and unfathomable depth of vision, identical in its accentuation of character development and production design. Akira Kurosawa’s aptitude for merging interpersonal morality play with rousing combat setpiece has never been more evident, utilizing his visual grandeur as a vehicle for symbols that render man insignificant against the magnitude of the landscape.

*Miller, Arthur. The Crucible: A Play in Four Acts. New York, NY: Penguin, 2003. Print.

Ran (StudioCanal, 1985)
Directed by Akira Kurosawa
Written by William Shakespeare (play - “King Lear”), Akira Kurosawa (screenplay), Hideo Oguni (screenplay) and Masato Ide (screenplay)
Photographed by Asakazu Nakai, Takao Saitô and Shôji Ueda