Dusan Makavejev is a visionary, anarchistic filmmaker who I previously wrote about but that film, Love Affair, is conventional compared to WR and Sweet Movie.

WR explores a lot of interesting subjects like Wilhelm Reich, the left and the right of political thought and the unworkable silliness of both, the ironies of war ("Kill, kill, kill for peace...Near or far or very middle East" - not different from today at all) - this film is packed with ideas, intellectual but visually displayed in inventive scenes that almost defy description. Quirky, surreal, documentary-like - it's a visual non-sequitur of sorts that always works, somehow. Unsurprisingly, a lot of the commentary is still relevant - things don't really fundamentally change anyway, do they? Highly recommended with a smidgen of warning!

The children now love luxury; they have bad manners, contempt for authority; they show disrespect for elders and love chatter in place of exercise. Children are now tyrants, not the servants of their households. They no longer rise when elders enter the room. They contradict their parents, chatter before company, gobble up dainties at the table, cross their legs, and tyrannize their teachers. Attributed to SOCRATES

Sweet Movie is a lesser work but interesting in its own right. Ostensibly about sexual politics, it's too expansive in content to really be just about this. It features a crazy (and grotesque) ending sequence with the Vienna Aktionists and an indescribable chocolate dance routine - and some crazy lovemaking in a vat of sugar. Capitalism to Communism to Anarchism is the progression leaving you with nowhere else to go in civilization - and that's fine with me b/c it's all bunk anyway. Philosophically this is strictly for yourself, mind you, not for the world which will probably continue to be dominated by capitalism. Anyway, Sweet Movie is not for everyone or as accessible as WR (and probably the product of a sick person) but is still interesting and outrageous and could never get made today - but I can't say that I really recommend it. By the time you finish the film you feel like you've been through a grueling adventure in the jungles of possibility and come out with malaria.

"Is there life on the earth, Is there life after birth?" memorable song from Sweet Movie

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Surrealist masterpiece about Arrabal's youth in Fascist occupied Spain under Franco and the first in his trilogy of exceptional films he made in the 1970's. The title is based on a real quote by a fascist general: "Down with intelligence, long live death!" and was the credo of the militant bands of thugs that roamed Spain's countryside rampantly killing that is featured in the film. Ultimately this film is a coming of age tale (with a lot of valid politics thrown in) of Fando (Arrabal's autobiographical protagonist) told in a dreamy, visceral way that you won't soon forget.

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from MOTION PICTURE PURGATORY

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Christophe Honoré's Ma Mère (My Mother) is based on the unfinished novel by Georges Bataille. It stars Isabelle Huppert and Louis Garrel who I previously wrote about in my write up of Bertolucci's The Dreamers. It's great but not for everyone but that could probably be said about all of the films I write about.

Here is the synopsis from the official site:

Ma mère takes place in the Canary Islands, where the film's family shares a home. The mother Hélène (Isabelle Huppert), cool and in charge, and her teenaged son Pierre (Louis Garrel), a pious Catholic back from boarding school, discuss his father's infidelity; the next they hear, he is dead in a car crash. Hélène launches into a wild series of parties, gradually involving her son in her drugging, drinking and sex-fuelled nights out.

When she mysteriously goes away, her son is left in the care of her mistress Réa (Joana Preiss) and Hansi (Emma de Caunes), an icy blonde sadist with whom he falls in love. As the film evolves, we realize that this is a period of initiation for the young man until his mother can return and fully bring him to sexual maturity and adulthood.

Huppert is always great and the fact that this film even got made with such an outstanding cast is pretty amazing. I mean, tackling Bataille is a tricky job at best and it succeeded more often than not. The film's main strength is the ability of it to transport you into Pierre's world of tragedy and debauchery. A classic Oedipal tale but with a lot less classicism and a lot more realism. Film is metaphorical though, a dream if it is done right and not to be taken literally, it's not a documentary. The characters literally act out things but they have mostly metaphorical or emotional truth. If you like Catherine Breillat's work then you'll like this film.

Bataille himself summed up the ethos of this work thusly:

Pleasure only starts once the worm has got into the fruit, to become delightful happiness must be tainted with poison.

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Michael Haneke's La Pianiste is disturbingly enthralling cinema (much better than the sometimes slow Caché) though I'm not sure that this isn't mostly b/c of the (always) incredible performance of Isabelle Huppert. It's based on the novel Die Klavierspielerin (The Piano Player) by Elfriede Jelinek, which was the 2004 Nobel Prize winner in Literature. Isabelle Huppert is simply the most talented French actess today and everything I've seen her in has been excellent.

You know, a lot of people may scratch their heads trying to understand Erika Kohut (Huppert's character) but to me it's simple and can be summed up in two words: mommy monster. Her relationship with her mother (and the lack of a father who went insane early in her childhood) is what made her unstable. You can plainly see their relationship as emotional (and often physical) S&M so Erika's issues are no surprise. You really feel for her situation by the end - a person tortured by demons they didn't knowingly create. She simply wants love but over the top of this simple wish is a lot of built up psychological baggage that sadly will probably never be waded through enough to get to the core.

Oh - and apparently like Caché this film also has some sort of sociopolitical context also but as usual I can do without this level. The psychological is always mirrored in the sociological so what's the point of THIS point? The butterfly flapping it's wings is always more fascinating than the hurricane for me anyway b/c it's the source or cause. Psychologists always understand sociology b/c one creates the other - but sociologist frequently have no idea about psychology - seems kind of silly doesn't it?

Regardless, I highly recommend this film!

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Miguel Faria Jr.'s 2 hour documentary on the life of Vinicius de Morais is a fascinating tale of one man who changed Brazilian culture. Vinicius was a true artist and bohemian with all of it's trappings. If you are into Brazilian music then you are into Vinicius whether you know it or not.

Firmly rooted in the tradition of music bios, but with such a unique subject it transcends the genre, veteran Miguel Faria Jr.'s salute to the great Brazilian composer Vinicius de Moraes (1913-1980) is something more than a listing of triumphs pre- and post- "The Girl from Ipanema." The pantheon of Brazilian music, from Caetano Veloso to Chico Buarque and Gilberto Gil, parade through a carnival of sassy, innovative tunes that have become evergreens, recounting stories about Vinicius as musician, poet, diplomat and lover of nine wives. This rich-looking production, which seems made for ancillary, should sing a lucrative song.

Spending, drinking and marrying wife after wife, Vinicius wrote plays, poems and the music and lyrics to 400 ground-breaking songs, all the while carrying on a diplomatic career until kicked out by the dictatorship in 1969. Working alongside Antonio Carlos Jobim and Joao Gilberto, he created the Bossa Nova; later he paired with Toquinho, Tom Jobim and other lights. Personal commentary is heard from his daughter and film's producer, Susana de Moraes. Actors Camila Morgado and Ricardo Blat provide a pretty frame, reciting Vinicius' poetry (he published 12 books of it). Source

Essential recordings to get you started, these are ALL desert island picks (all the music files are Windows Media VBR Format - 64 kbps):

Chega de Saudade from The Legendary João Gilberto

Portuguese:
Vai minha tristeza
E diz a ela que
Sem ela não pode ser
Diz-lhe numa prece
Que ela regresse
Porque eu não posso mais sofrer

Chega de saudade
A realidade é que sem ela
Não há paz não há beleza
É só tristeza e a melancolia
Que não sai de mim
Não sai de mim
Não sai
Mas se ela volta
Se ela volta
Que coisa linda
Que coisa louca
Pois há menos peixinhos
A nadar no mar
Do que os beijinhos
Que eu darei na sua boca
Dentro dos meus braços os abraços
Hão de ser milhões de abraços
Apertado assim, colado assim, calado assim,
Abraços e beijinhos e carinhos
Sem ter fim
Que é pra acabar com esse negócio
De viver longe de mim
Não quero mais esse negócio
De você viver assim
Vamos deixar desse negócio
De você viver sem mim

English:
Go, my sadness
And tell her that
Without her it cannot be.
Tell her in a prayer
To return to me,
For I can't suffer anymore.
No more longing,
The truth is that without her
There's no peace, there's no
beauty,
There's only sadness and
melancholy,
That doesn't leave me,
Doesn't leave me,
Doesn't leave,
But if she returns,
If she returns,
What a beautiful thing
What a crazy thing,
For there are fewer fishes
Swimming in the sea
Than the kisses
That I'll plant on her mouth,
In my arms the
embraces,
There'll have to be millions of
embraces,
Tight like this, stuck like this,
Quiet like this,
Embraces and kisses and caresses
Without end.
It's time to end that
business
Of living away from me,
I no longer want that business
Of your living like this,
Let's stop this business
Of your living without me

The Girl from Ipanema from Getz/Gilberto

Portuguese:
Olha que coisa mais linda,
mais cheia de graça
É ela menina
que vem que passa
Num doce balanço
caminho do mar

Moça do corpo dourado
do sol de Ipanema
O seu balançado
é mais que um poema
É a coisa mais linda
que eu já vi passar

Ah, porque estou tão sozinho
Ah, porque tudo e tão triste
Ah, a beleza que existe
A beleza que não é só minha
que também passa sozinha

Ah, se ela soubesse
que quando ela passa
O mundo sorrindo
se enche de graça
E fica mais lindo
por causa do amor

English:
Look at this thing, most lovely
most graceful
It's her, the girl
that comes, that passes
with a sweet swinging
walking to the sea

Girl of the golden body
from the sun of Ipanema
Your swaying
is more than a poem
It's a thing more beautiful
than I have ever seen pass by

Ah, why am I so alone
Ah, why is everthing so sad
The beauty that exists
The beauty that is not mine alone
that also passes by on its own

Ah, if she only knew
that when she passes
the world smiles
fills itself with grace
and remains more beautiful
because of love

Canto de Ossanha from Os Afro-Sambas De Baden E Vinicius

Portuguese:
O homem que diz "dou" não dá
Porque quem dá mesmo não diz
O homem que diz "vou" não vai
Porque quando foi já não quis
O homem que diz "sou" não é
Porque quem é mesmo é "não sou"
O homem que diz "tô" não tá
Porque ninguém tá quando quer
Coitado do homem que cai
No canto de Ossanha, traidor
Coitado do homem que vai
Atrás de mandinga de amor

Vai, vai, vai, vai, não vou
Vai, vai, vai, vai, não vou
Vai, vai, vai, vai, não vou
Vai, vai, vai, vai, não vou
Que eu não sou ninguém de ir
Em conversa de esquecer
A tristeza de um amor que passou
Não, eu só vou se for pra ver
Uma estrela aparecer
Na manhã de um novo amor

Amigo sinhô Saravá
Xangô me mandou lhe dizer
Se é canto de Ossanha, não va
Que muito vai se arrepender
Pergunte pro seu Orixá
O amor só é bom se doer
Pergunte pro seu Orixá
O amor só é bom se doer

Vai, vai, vai, vai, amar
Vai, vai, vai, sofrer
Vai, vai, vai, vai, chorar
Vai, vai, vai, dizer
Que eu não sou ninguém de ir
Em conversa de esquecer
A tristeza de um amor que passou
Não, eu só vou se for pra ver
Uma estrela aparecer
Na manhã de um novo amor

English:
The man who says "I'll give" won't give
For he who truly gives never tells
The man who says "I'll go" won't go
For when he went it was unwillingly
The man who says "I am" is not
For he who truly is, is "I'm not"
The man who says "I'm here" is not
For no one is when they want
Pity the man who falls
For the song of Ossanha, the treacherous
Pity the man who seeks
A magic spell for love.

Go, go, go, I won't go
Go, go, go, I won't go
Go, go, go, I won't go
Go, go, go, I won't go
Because I'm not the type who believes
In this talk of forgetting
The sadness of a lost love
No, I'll only go if it's to see
A shining star appear
In the dawning of a new love

Greetings, my friend
Xangô told me to tell you
That if it's Ossanha's song, don't go
Or you'll be very sorry
Just ask your Orixá
Love is only good if it hurts
Just ask your Orixá
Love is only good if it hurts

You will, you will, you will love
You will, you will, you will suffer
You will, you will, you will cry
You will, you will, you will say
That I'm not the type who believes
In this talk of forgetting
The sadness of a lost love
No, I'll only go if it's to see
A shining star appear
In the dawning of a new love.

WOMAN RECIPE

...Let the woman be, to begin with, tall, or, being short, have the mental
disposition of high summits.
Ah, the woman should always give the impression that, if one close the eyes
and open them, she will vanish, her schemes and smiles.
She should not approach, she should appear, leave, not go, and should have a
certain capacity for suddenly growing silent, of making us drink the bile of
suspicion.
Oh, and above all she should never lose, no matter the world, no matter
under what circumstances, her talky, birdlike changeability, and when
touched deep within herself become wild, not losing the bird's grace; and
should exhale always the impossible perfume; and always distill honey that
gets you drunk; and sing always the voiceless song of her tumult; and always
be the eternal dancer of the short-lived day; and in her countless
imperfection become the most beautiful, most perfect thing in all
innumerable creation.

By Vinícius de Morais

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