(Mario Bava, 1968)
What elevates Danger: Diabolik above many other cult films of the 1960s is the direction of Mario Bava. A great visual stylist - most evident in his giallo work - Bava is a little more controlled here than in much of his output, perhaps sensing that in this case, he can simply allow the sets and wardrobe to take much the burden of style.
He still pulls off many audacious moments and his sense of movement and colour is still intact and striking. The campy story adapts an adventure by Italian comic book legend Diabolik (John Phillip Law), basically a super-villain who resides in a series of underground caves, performs elaborate heists and escapes and likes to have sex with his beautiful girlfriend Eva (Marissa Mell) upon all the money he's stolen when he's not planning thefts or playing tricks upon the police.
The dull bits of the plot focus on the efforts of various policemen and politicians to catch Diabolik, but the fun scenes are all the moments showing him in action. Whether it's scaling a castle turret or foiling police pursuers with a giant mirror, everything Diabolik and Eva do is a strange mixture of funny, sexy and cool. While some moments are dated, it has aged remarkably well. Again, this is down to Bava's visual sensibilities; the way he stages and shoots action scenes, his economical camera movements, his beautiful use of colour.
John Phillip Law is a little wooden but Bava makes great use of his distinctive eyes, and even better use of Mell's voluptuous beauty - few genre films take such unambiguous delight in the physicality of their leading lady as this one.To underline the debt to the Bond series - Danger: Diabolik mocks and parodies a few of its contemporary influences - Thunderball's Adolfo Celi is well-cast as a crime boss who likes to drop those who have crossed him through a trap-door on his private jet.
The Ennio Morricone score is, obviously, superb.
Showing posts with label Italian Cinema. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Italian Cinema. Show all posts
Wednesday, 4 November 2015
Tuesday, 17 September 2013
THE GREAT BEAUTY
(Paolo Sorrentino, 2013)
Sorrentino finally hits his stride with The Great Beauty after a string of dazzling oddities and beautiful misfires. His talent has never been in doubt and each of his previous films is worthwhile, but here, for the first time, he feels like a mature artist, the energy and chutzpah of his style tamed and directed so that it services his subject matter.
That subject matter appears to be Rome itself, though the city is more like one of the film's main characters. The principle is Jep (Sorrentino muse Toni Servillo), a 65 year old socialite and writer who drifts around Rome's upper-class parties and events, unruffled by all the debauchery, hypocrisy and idiocy he witnesses. Instead Jep seems amused by it all, keeping a group of friends around him but somehow always a solitary figure.
The real subject is the change that comes over Jep soon after his birthday; he begins to reminisce, he wonders at lost opportunities and past mistakes. Death is on his personal horizon, and Sorrentino plays with this theme in ways both subtle and obvious; there is plentiful Catholic imagery (Jep lives in a building between a Convent and the Colisseum) and a fine extended set-piece at a funeral.
There are many set-pieces. This is an episodic tale, following Jep through his days and nights and occasionally meandering off to follow a supporting character for a scene or two before circling back to the brilliant Servillo, who always suggests the intelligence and soulfulness of his character.
That soulfulness is crucial, for it informs the film as well as the lead. The Great Beauty, as a Sorrentino film, is filled with breathtaking camera moves and excessive sequences (the early party scene, though brilliantly put together, goes on a minute or so too long). Many scenes unfold without dialogue, and this director is so good at that - he cuts these scenes to music with such virtuosity it seems only a matter of time before he makes a musical - that they are all pure pleasure.
But like his other work, such ostentatious style can feel exhausting. This is where The Great Beauty excels. From early on Sorrentino allows a little melancholy into his film.
It bursts into colour when the widower of Jep's first love comes to tell him that she has died, and the two old men weep together in a stairwell. From then on Jep is a little lost, and memories, dreams and reveries (he imagines the ocean in his bedroom ceiling) mingle with the many surreal sights thrown up by his social life, a mixture of sadness, satire and wry amusement informing it all. That sadness brings with it soul, a sense of longing that seems even present in the many slow beautiful crawls across Rome at sunset and down its streets after dark.
In a film seemingly deliberately referring to La Dolce Vita, such unexpected sadness is bracing, and in fact it makes some scenes in the later stages extremely moving. But balancing that is always Sorrentino's scathing portraits of members of the Church, the Intellectual elite, showbiz types and fading nobility - this is a portrayal of Berlusconi's Italy with some real savagery in it.
It is also one of the great Rome films, and one of the best Italian films of recent years.
Sorrentino finally hits his stride with The Great Beauty after a string of dazzling oddities and beautiful misfires. His talent has never been in doubt and each of his previous films is worthwhile, but here, for the first time, he feels like a mature artist, the energy and chutzpah of his style tamed and directed so that it services his subject matter.
That subject matter appears to be Rome itself, though the city is more like one of the film's main characters. The principle is Jep (Sorrentino muse Toni Servillo), a 65 year old socialite and writer who drifts around Rome's upper-class parties and events, unruffled by all the debauchery, hypocrisy and idiocy he witnesses. Instead Jep seems amused by it all, keeping a group of friends around him but somehow always a solitary figure.
The real subject is the change that comes over Jep soon after his birthday; he begins to reminisce, he wonders at lost opportunities and past mistakes. Death is on his personal horizon, and Sorrentino plays with this theme in ways both subtle and obvious; there is plentiful Catholic imagery (Jep lives in a building between a Convent and the Colisseum) and a fine extended set-piece at a funeral.
There are many set-pieces. This is an episodic tale, following Jep through his days and nights and occasionally meandering off to follow a supporting character for a scene or two before circling back to the brilliant Servillo, who always suggests the intelligence and soulfulness of his character.
That soulfulness is crucial, for it informs the film as well as the lead. The Great Beauty, as a Sorrentino film, is filled with breathtaking camera moves and excessive sequences (the early party scene, though brilliantly put together, goes on a minute or so too long). Many scenes unfold without dialogue, and this director is so good at that - he cuts these scenes to music with such virtuosity it seems only a matter of time before he makes a musical - that they are all pure pleasure.
But like his other work, such ostentatious style can feel exhausting. This is where The Great Beauty excels. From early on Sorrentino allows a little melancholy into his film.
It bursts into colour when the widower of Jep's first love comes to tell him that she has died, and the two old men weep together in a stairwell. From then on Jep is a little lost, and memories, dreams and reveries (he imagines the ocean in his bedroom ceiling) mingle with the many surreal sights thrown up by his social life, a mixture of sadness, satire and wry amusement informing it all. That sadness brings with it soul, a sense of longing that seems even present in the many slow beautiful crawls across Rome at sunset and down its streets after dark.
In a film seemingly deliberately referring to La Dolce Vita, such unexpected sadness is bracing, and in fact it makes some scenes in the later stages extremely moving. But balancing that is always Sorrentino's scathing portraits of members of the Church, the Intellectual elite, showbiz types and fading nobility - this is a portrayal of Berlusconi's Italy with some real savagery in it.
It is also one of the great Rome films, and one of the best Italian films of recent years.
Sunday, 24 March 2013
REALITY
(Matteo Garrone, 2012)
One of the many things that really leaps out during Matteo Garrone's Reality is Alexandre Desplat's score. It swirls and twinkles away and generally sounds like it might have been composed for a film filled with magic and whimsy. It sounds like it belongs in a fairytale, and Garrone allows it enough prominence to make that obvious.
There is a fairytale aspect to this story - Luciano (Aniello Arena) follows a dream and for a brief instant his life seems full of possibility, transformed by a charge of glimmering glamour, acclaim from all who know him. But then, like many fairytales, a darkness enters the story, and slowly, finally overwhelms it.
The story centres on one mans obsession Italy's version of Big Brother. Luciano runs a Naples fish stall in an Italy which seems - just like the stereotypes suggest - to exist a few decades in the past, in a pre-digital world. He lives in a crumbling building and Naples is depicted as a sprawling mess of beautiful, ancient wrecks, old women in shift dresses shopping at markets and going to Mass.
In this world, Big Brother represents escape, Rome, show business, youth, fame, money. Luciano, at first shown as happy in his busy life and adored by his friends and family for his extrovert ways, is bullied into auditioning by his children.
But when he feels his audition might have been successful, something in him changes, and his relationship with the show and his own ambition twists inside him. When the show begins and he has not received a call from the producers, he becomes paranoid, feeling he is being watched by people from the television company who need to see if he is suitable. He begins to alienate those around him; his family and friends.
Garrone shoots all this in a series of beautifully blocked, long, mobile takes, the camera orbiting Arena's amazing face as it takes in his world in all its vibrant colour. This obviously means the film pulses with verisimilitude, which gives this parable some sting. There is grit here, texture to the world Luciano inhabits, love and humour in a life which is nice, if far from perfect, before his obsession takes hold. The satire is never particularly sharp, but its does find its target, and turns painful before long. That this is an Italy in the grip of a financial crisis is never in doubt - these are people struggling for money, people hoping for an escape, and that makes Luciano's growing desperation all the more believable.
His televisual church is juxtaposed with Catholicism, and the somewhat ambiguous though disturbing ending feels just right. The cast are nicely naturalistic throughout, and Arena is particularly good; his open face is rivetingly watchable, registering his slow decline in his big, sad eyes.
One of the many things that really leaps out during Matteo Garrone's Reality is Alexandre Desplat's score. It swirls and twinkles away and generally sounds like it might have been composed for a film filled with magic and whimsy. It sounds like it belongs in a fairytale, and Garrone allows it enough prominence to make that obvious.
There is a fairytale aspect to this story - Luciano (Aniello Arena) follows a dream and for a brief instant his life seems full of possibility, transformed by a charge of glimmering glamour, acclaim from all who know him. But then, like many fairytales, a darkness enters the story, and slowly, finally overwhelms it.
The story centres on one mans obsession Italy's version of Big Brother. Luciano runs a Naples fish stall in an Italy which seems - just like the stereotypes suggest - to exist a few decades in the past, in a pre-digital world. He lives in a crumbling building and Naples is depicted as a sprawling mess of beautiful, ancient wrecks, old women in shift dresses shopping at markets and going to Mass.
In this world, Big Brother represents escape, Rome, show business, youth, fame, money. Luciano, at first shown as happy in his busy life and adored by his friends and family for his extrovert ways, is bullied into auditioning by his children.
But when he feels his audition might have been successful, something in him changes, and his relationship with the show and his own ambition twists inside him. When the show begins and he has not received a call from the producers, he becomes paranoid, feeling he is being watched by people from the television company who need to see if he is suitable. He begins to alienate those around him; his family and friends.
Garrone shoots all this in a series of beautifully blocked, long, mobile takes, the camera orbiting Arena's amazing face as it takes in his world in all its vibrant colour. This obviously means the film pulses with verisimilitude, which gives this parable some sting. There is grit here, texture to the world Luciano inhabits, love and humour in a life which is nice, if far from perfect, before his obsession takes hold. The satire is never particularly sharp, but its does find its target, and turns painful before long. That this is an Italy in the grip of a financial crisis is never in doubt - these are people struggling for money, people hoping for an escape, and that makes Luciano's growing desperation all the more believable.
His televisual church is juxtaposed with Catholicism, and the somewhat ambiguous though disturbing ending feels just right. The cast are nicely naturalistic throughout, and Arena is particularly good; his open face is rivetingly watchable, registering his slow decline in his big, sad eyes.
Thursday, 3 January 2013
FACCIA A FACCIA
aka FACE TO FACE
(Sergio Sollima, 1967)
Sollima is arguably the most interesting of the major Spaghetti Western directors; mainly due to the contradictions and dissonances in his work. Faccia a Faccia is a great case in point. Here is a spaghetti western - a sub-genre famed for its shocking violence - which, for most of its running time, actively shuns action and bloodletting. Sollima cuts right into the middle of one gunfight, just after the shot has been fired (the shot sounds almost as if it was timed to signal the cut), cuts away from another to focus on the faces of two spectators, and doesn't show anything (save the aftermath) of the epic battle which most films would be keen to use as the climax.
Sollima was, in other words, a director with quite peculiar instincts. Which may be what makes his work so fascinating. When he does film violence here, he makes sure that it counts. The biggest action scene is a gunfight that erupts after a bank robbery goes wrong, and Sollima ensures that the deaths in that fight are earned and have some emotional weight. He seems far more interested in the planning and build-up to the robbery. That he captures in one amazing sequence as Brad Dexter (Gian Maria Volonté) describes his plan to the gang in voiceover, and we see them arrive and take position in town, one by one - all in a single take. Indeed, the most impressive aspect of Sollima's style is the subtle dynamism and effectiveness of his blocking in tandem with the few, minor camera moves he executes. Another great scene sees the Bandit Beauregard Bennet (Tomas Milian) watch as six gunmen arrive to kill him. He is sitting on a porch and the camera pans around from behind him as the men arrive in pairs from three separate directions. There is an appealing grace and musicality to moments like this which is the real joy in Sollima's work.
The other element that makes his work seem so distinctive is his interest in politics - this is very much a political Western. Not quite in the way that the "Zapata Western" films written by the great Franco Solinas are, but Sollima ensures that his characters, Dexter in particular, have obvious political stances.
The plot is basically a slow identity-switch. History Professor Dexter moves to Texas to aid his tubercular lungs, where he encounters bandit Beauregard. They form an uneasy alliance, become friends, and slowly effect the way one another think. In time, Dexter becomes the leader of the gang and displays marked fascist inclinations - his orders must be obeyed unquestioningly, and he expects decisive, strong men to follow him. Meanwhile Beauregard begins to see moral dimensions to his actions, and his hesitation to kill a child is what bungles a crucial bank robbery. All the while the two are being pursued by the undercover Pinkerton Siringo (William Berger), setting the stage for a quintessentially Spaghetti three-way desert showdown.
Sollima is a more old-fashioned director than his revered Italian peers Leone, Corbucci and Damiani. His pacing is more deliberate, and more classical than is common in much of this sub-gnre (he has spoken of the influence of Samurai film on his approach). But he makes fantastic use of some stunning Spanish locations and he draws good performances from his leads. While Berger is a touch wooden, Milian is all method sneer as Beauregard, doing his best in a role that is perhaps a touch underwritten (there is no establishing scene showing us quite how despicable he is as an outlaw - we only hear about it - robbing his journey of some of its potential emotional power). Volonté, meanwhile, moves from a quiet, slightly fragile figure to the more familiarly fearsome performer by the end of the film, raping, murdering and torturing with abandon. His face loses its sickly pallor, he begins to strut, and becomes a magnetic presence.
The final element which makes Faccia a Faccia quite unmissable is Ennio Morricone's strident score, from an era when he was churning out several masterpieces a year. Like the film, his work here doesn't quite reach that status, but it is still typically brilliant.
(Sergio Sollima, 1967)
Sollima is arguably the most interesting of the major Spaghetti Western directors; mainly due to the contradictions and dissonances in his work. Faccia a Faccia is a great case in point. Here is a spaghetti western - a sub-genre famed for its shocking violence - which, for most of its running time, actively shuns action and bloodletting. Sollima cuts right into the middle of one gunfight, just after the shot has been fired (the shot sounds almost as if it was timed to signal the cut), cuts away from another to focus on the faces of two spectators, and doesn't show anything (save the aftermath) of the epic battle which most films would be keen to use as the climax.
Sollima was, in other words, a director with quite peculiar instincts. Which may be what makes his work so fascinating. When he does film violence here, he makes sure that it counts. The biggest action scene is a gunfight that erupts after a bank robbery goes wrong, and Sollima ensures that the deaths in that fight are earned and have some emotional weight. He seems far more interested in the planning and build-up to the robbery. That he captures in one amazing sequence as Brad Dexter (Gian Maria Volonté) describes his plan to the gang in voiceover, and we see them arrive and take position in town, one by one - all in a single take. Indeed, the most impressive aspect of Sollima's style is the subtle dynamism and effectiveness of his blocking in tandem with the few, minor camera moves he executes. Another great scene sees the Bandit Beauregard Bennet (Tomas Milian) watch as six gunmen arrive to kill him. He is sitting on a porch and the camera pans around from behind him as the men arrive in pairs from three separate directions. There is an appealing grace and musicality to moments like this which is the real joy in Sollima's work.
The other element that makes his work seem so distinctive is his interest in politics - this is very much a political Western. Not quite in the way that the "Zapata Western" films written by the great Franco Solinas are, but Sollima ensures that his characters, Dexter in particular, have obvious political stances.
The plot is basically a slow identity-switch. History Professor Dexter moves to Texas to aid his tubercular lungs, where he encounters bandit Beauregard. They form an uneasy alliance, become friends, and slowly effect the way one another think. In time, Dexter becomes the leader of the gang and displays marked fascist inclinations - his orders must be obeyed unquestioningly, and he expects decisive, strong men to follow him. Meanwhile Beauregard begins to see moral dimensions to his actions, and his hesitation to kill a child is what bungles a crucial bank robbery. All the while the two are being pursued by the undercover Pinkerton Siringo (William Berger), setting the stage for a quintessentially Spaghetti three-way desert showdown.
Sollima is a more old-fashioned director than his revered Italian peers Leone, Corbucci and Damiani. His pacing is more deliberate, and more classical than is common in much of this sub-gnre (he has spoken of the influence of Samurai film on his approach). But he makes fantastic use of some stunning Spanish locations and he draws good performances from his leads. While Berger is a touch wooden, Milian is all method sneer as Beauregard, doing his best in a role that is perhaps a touch underwritten (there is no establishing scene showing us quite how despicable he is as an outlaw - we only hear about it - robbing his journey of some of its potential emotional power). Volonté, meanwhile, moves from a quiet, slightly fragile figure to the more familiarly fearsome performer by the end of the film, raping, murdering and torturing with abandon. His face loses its sickly pallor, he begins to strut, and becomes a magnetic presence.
The final element which makes Faccia a Faccia quite unmissable is Ennio Morricone's strident score, from an era when he was churning out several masterpieces a year. Like the film, his work here doesn't quite reach that status, but it is still typically brilliant.
Wednesday, 20 July 2011
LA QUATTRO VOLTE
(Michelangelo Frammartino, 2010)
Slightly challenging in its nonchalant dismissal of traditional narrative, Frammartino's film is a unique piece. Part documentary, part poem, part essay, part movie, it coolly and precisely observes some characters around an Italian mountain village. Only one of those characters is human; an old goat farmer we follow for the first reel, observing his everyday routine. He walks his goats to a pasture, sits beneath a tree, brings them home, trades goats milk for dust from the town church, which he dissolves into a glass before bed at night, collects snails. The soundtrack is the bells round the necks of the goats and his worsening cough. The second character is a calf, born to one of his goats after his death, and whose early existence in sheds and upon mountainsides we witness. Then a huge fir tree becomes our lead, chopped down for use in a Spring festival, made into charcoal, and finally transformed into smoke from a village chimney. The goat farmers dog is the comic relief, responsible for a surprisingly deft comic sequence observed by Frammartino's camera from on high involving a truck, a hillside and a fence.
The camera is the real star here however, exquisitely capturing the skies above the town and the mountains through changing seasons, beautifully picking out a twisting swirl of dust motes turning in the light from a window in the gloom of a church, rarely moving, generally perfectly placed. The films attractive simplicity and even pacing invite the viewer to interpret it however they wish, and indeed one could wrest big statements about nature, time and space and life and death from its content. It is undeniably interested in all those themes and studies each to one extent or other. But it all seems too obvious, polite and even slightly too inarticulate to be regarded as profound, but it is the sort of film which becomes hypnotic if you surrender to its unique rhythm, and it is beautiful, funny, and never less than interesting.
Slightly challenging in its nonchalant dismissal of traditional narrative, Frammartino's film is a unique piece. Part documentary, part poem, part essay, part movie, it coolly and precisely observes some characters around an Italian mountain village. Only one of those characters is human; an old goat farmer we follow for the first reel, observing his everyday routine. He walks his goats to a pasture, sits beneath a tree, brings them home, trades goats milk for dust from the town church, which he dissolves into a glass before bed at night, collects snails. The soundtrack is the bells round the necks of the goats and his worsening cough. The second character is a calf, born to one of his goats after his death, and whose early existence in sheds and upon mountainsides we witness. Then a huge fir tree becomes our lead, chopped down for use in a Spring festival, made into charcoal, and finally transformed into smoke from a village chimney. The goat farmers dog is the comic relief, responsible for a surprisingly deft comic sequence observed by Frammartino's camera from on high involving a truck, a hillside and a fence.
The camera is the real star here however, exquisitely capturing the skies above the town and the mountains through changing seasons, beautifully picking out a twisting swirl of dust motes turning in the light from a window in the gloom of a church, rarely moving, generally perfectly placed. The films attractive simplicity and even pacing invite the viewer to interpret it however they wish, and indeed one could wrest big statements about nature, time and space and life and death from its content. It is undeniably interested in all those themes and studies each to one extent or other. But it all seems too obvious, polite and even slightly too inarticulate to be regarded as profound, but it is the sort of film which becomes hypnotic if you surrender to its unique rhythm, and it is beautiful, funny, and never less than interesting.
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