Steven Rubio's Online Life

film fatales #220: jane b. for agnès v. (agnès varda, 1988)

I'm taking on another challenge. This one is The Criterion Challenge 2025. It's the fifth annual, my first try. "There are 52 categories. The goal is to watch any Criterion released film based on the categories ... between 1/1/25-12/31/25." There is no specified order, so I'll watch them as I get to them. Today's category is "Watch a film from the Criterion Channel’s all time favorites lists".

I don't need a challenge to watch an Agnès Varda movie I haven't seen. This one is especially interesting, since I watched A Complete Unknown a few days ago. That one's a biopic, while Jane B. is an intriguing blend of genres. Letterboxd calls it a documentary, while the IMDB calls it a biography and fantasy and Wikipedia lists it among Varda's fiction films. Varda herself calls it "an imaginary biopic". Its premise comes from Jane Birkin, model, actor, singer, realizing she's turning 40 and Varda telling her that's a wonderful age and they should make a movie together about Birkin's life. But Varda didn't want to make the usual retrospective of Birkin's career, so she films Birkin in various period costumes enacting made-up movies, interspersed with interviews where the two women spontaneously (or not) talk about the career of the actress. It is never confusing, really ... what we see provides insight into actor and director. What confuses is the source for what we see. Because it's invented, but purports to tell the "truth" about Jane Birkin, we in the audience are on shaky ground. Real people turn up as "themselves", including Birkin's longtime partner Serge Gainsbourg, their daughter Charlotte, Varda's son, and Jean-Pierre Léaud (not to forget, Varda herself). The enacted scenes include Birkin and Laura Betti as versions of Laurel and Hardy, and Birkin as Calamity Jane and Joan of Arc (we watch as she burns). I suppose you could say Birkin plays "Jane Birkin" as well.

It's all full of Varda's impish humor, and I enjoyed watching it, although I'm not sure there are any larger points to be made. I've seen 8 movies by Varda now, and I've yet to see one I didn't like. Truth is, I bring up my love of her work every time I see a new one. You'd think by now I'd quit being surprised.

white mane (albert lamorisse, 1953)

I'm taking on another challenge. This one is The Criterion Challenge 2025. It's the fifth annual, my first try. "There are 52 categories. The goal is to watch any Criterion released film based on the categories ... between 1/1/25-12/31/25." There is no specified order, so I'll watch them as I get to them. My second category is "Watch a film from the year you were born".

White Mane is a classic short from Albert Lamorisse. His next film, The Red Balloon, also a short, won an Oscar. Both films are beautiful shot ... White Mane is lyrical in its approach to a story about the friendship between a young boy and a wild horse. I feel a bit curmudgeonly that while I appreciate these movies, and am happy to add my praise to the piles that have heaped upon them in the past, I don't feel the need to watch again. Charming, something you can show to children but also something adults will appreciate, and there aren't enough films like that.

goodbye to language (jean-luc godard, 2014)

Before this, I had seen a dozen Godard movies, and I consider myself a huge fan, with two classics (Breathless and Vivre sa Vie) and many others I rate highly. But ... and it's a big but ... the most recent of those films is Weekend, which came out in 1967. I have seen a dozen, but still have a limited understand of Godard's work overall.

So now I've watched Goodbye to Language, considered one of his late highlights (#117 on the They Shoot Pictures, Don't They list of the top 1000 films of the 21st century). And I fear it doesn't convince me that I need to watch more post-Weekend Godard.

It's pretty much what I expected, given my limited knowledge about Godard's later work. It's highly experimental, purposely inscrutable, very "in your face". Godard challenges the viewer to interpret what he offers, and makes interpretation difficult if not impossible. I have no insights, but it seems to me that he is uninterested in meaning as a theme or subject. Instead, he wants to challenge the standards of cinema, in the process challenging us as an audience. Indeed, Goodbye to Language is challenging. Clearly, some have found the film insightful. But it completely missed the boat for me. Godard made it in 3D, and the print I watched was in 2D ... maybe it mattered, but I doubt it.

geezer cinema: the return (uberto pasolini, 2024)

It's easy to see why The Return was made. You've got a classic tale based on Homer's Odyssey. You've got two top actors in Ralph Fiennes and Juliette Binoche, appearing together for the first time since The English Patient in 1996. One of the screenwriters was the esteemed Edward Bond, his last film before his death at 89. The director was Oscar-nominated Uberto Pasolini.

Epic story, honored actors and crew, what could go wrong? Honestly, nothing goes wrong. But after watching The Return, I'm not sure why anyone bothered. Oh, Fiennes and Binoche might get Oscar nominations, and cinematographer Marius Panduru will be in the Oscar discussion as well. Perhaps the problem lies in the decision to turn Homer's epic into a brooding character story. That gives the two stars plenty to chew on, and they deliver, but the action is pretty limited until an ending so violent it earns the picture its "R" rating. It takes forever to get things going ... Odysseus washes ashore on Ithaca, naked, unrecognizable, then for what felt like forever we go back and forth between Odysseus keeping his identity a secret and Penelope pining for the man who left her so many years ago. It's not boring, not with two actors as strong as the leads. But it did feel like it took ten years to get Odysseus, naked on that beach, to finally claim his identity. The Return is not a waste of your time or the talent involved, it's just inconsequential.

le doulos (jean-pierre melville, 1962)

My fifth Melville movie, and this guy is amazing. It's not just that there are no duds ... they are all at the least very good. The consistency is remarkable. Le Doulos is confusing in a lot of ways. David Thomson usefully compared it to The Big Sleep, saying that movie showed that oftentimes, explanations are tedious. Jean-Paul Belmondo, who plays a thief and perhaps an informer (the title makes reference to the stool pigeon's role), is given a scene near the end in which he "explains" everything we've seen, but who can trust him? Best to greet that speech with a shrug that says, I don't care, I was enjoying myself.

The plot concerns stolen jewels and shaky friendships and betrayals and codes of honor, and we're confused enough that while specific actions are fairly clear, motivations seem variable. Just when you think one character is "good" or "bad", they do something that changes your mind. Yet Melville manages to make things flow, the performers are either good, perfectly cast, or both, and by the end of the film, you've been sucked into its world.

There aren't many women in that world, and Melville isn't impressed by them, anyway. (According to Roger Ebert, Melville claimed he "did not mistreat the women, his characters did." OK, but as he says, they are his characters.) Melville's best films have an intense focus that wouldn't fit here, and that's one reason I don't think Le Doulos is one of his best. But most film makers would kill for a Le Doulos on their resume.

la trinchera infinita (jose mari goenaga, jon garaño, and aitor arregi, 2019)

I watched this, called The Endless Trench in English, because it was said to feature Andalusian Spanish. Good call. The idea with these movies is I watch them in Spanish, with Spanish subtitles. Hopefully I improve my Spanish comprehension, and I enjoy the Andalusian accent of my family.

Directed by three Basque film makers, The Endless Trench is based on the true stories of men on the Republican side in the Spanish Civil War who rightfully feared reprisals from Franco's representatives. These men, "topos" (moles), used hiding places in their homes to avoid capture for 30 years, until amnesty was announced. The Endless Trench tells the story of one of those men, Higinio.

There is excruciating tension, but the film makers manage to expand the story beyond the trench, as we see not only how this exile affects Higinio, but how it affects his family. Higinio lives underground for so long it becomes normal to him, even as he curses his fate. We are with him in his shelter ... we learn the logistics of his life. We experience the quasi-freedom when he is able to roam throughout his house, and with him we come to grips with the difficulties his family faces in trying to live their lives while protecting him.

It all sounds like an oppressive film to view, and it is, in some ways. There is less of the "triumph of the human spirit" than I expected ... the life of Higinio is not an easy one. And at 2 1/2 hours, it sometimes feels like we're in that trench for 30 years along with Higinio. But the overall impact is powerful, and if you don't know the story of Los Topos, it's instructive as well.

l'humanité (bruno dumont, 1999)

There's no use spending too much time on this one. I really didn't like it, but because of that I didn't give it a proper chance. I watched half-an-hour and went to bed, got up the next day and watched another half-an-hour and gave up, and finally watched the rest of the movie on my phone. That's no way to watch a movie.

But in some ways, Bruno Dumont invites this. He has made an uncompromising, difficult movie, one that is certain to repel as many viewers as it will entice. He isn't hiding this fact. And there are people who find L'humanité brilliant. At Cannes, it won the Grand Prix award, along with acting honors for the two leads, Emmanuel Schotté and Séverine Caneele. But I found it exceedingly dreary. There is little plot, which leaves character, except the characters were a blank to me. The film lasts 2 1/2 hours, with not much dialogue, but lots of shots of actors staring blankly into space/the camera. I got nothing from this movie ... blame me if you like.

the mother and the whore (jean eustache, 1973)

The Mother and the Whore has achieved universal critical acclaim over the years. It was #94 on the most recent Sight and Sound poll (between Parasite and The Shining) and it's #105 on the They Shoot Pictures, Don't They list of the top 1000 films of all time. Way back when I and a couple of friends did a long, Fave Fifty Films thread on Facebook, Jeff Pike had it as #4 on his list. Admittedly, at times it seems like Jean Eustache is praised for the rules he is breaking. The Mother and the Whore is more than 3 1/2 hours long ... the length of an epic ... yet it is a talky, intimate movie, what might have come from John Cassavetes filming Is Paris Burning? There is a clear connection to the French New Wave, but it comes perhaps a decade after the initial flowering of the movement ... post-New Wave, if you will. Many critics read a critique of the New Wave in Eustache's film ... the lead character, Alexandre, is played by New Wave icon Jean-Pierre Léaud, whose charm came across in those earlier films, but whose Alexandre is narcissistic and rather unlikable. The Mother and the Whore is also a commentary on Paris 1968, and it benefits from being made so soon after those events. Alexandre misses the sense of commitment he felt in '68, although it's hard to accept that he truly believes in anything.

I found Léaud annoying, although maybe it's Alexandre that I didn't like. But the two lead actresses are impressive in different ways. Bernadette Lafont is a legend who manages to simultaneously suggest a movie star and an ordinary, down-to-earth woman. Meanwhile, the film came very early in the career of Françoise Lebrun ... she doesn't carry the same baggage as Lafont, "the face of the French New Wave". Her Veronika is burdened with having to wear her raw emotions more openly than the others. In a mixed review, Kael claimed that "the picture stands or falls on the viewer's attitude toward her recital of [Veronika's] sexual humiliations and her loathing of sex without love." I thought the character and Lebrun were properly all over the place. Lebrun gets a long monologue near the end of the film that will impress you if you get that far.

I don't think The Mother and the Whore is a masterpiece, but it is unique in many ways, worthy of at least one viewing.

film fatales #213: happening (audrey diwan, 2021)

Abortion is serious business, and a movie that features abortion better be good or it will outrage ... what a woman goes through deserves a powerful film. Of course, abortion is a crucial topic in the U.S. right now, and some movies, which occur in a time and/or place where abortions are hard to come by, really hit home. In Never Rarely Sometimes Always (2020), the central character is only 17, and can't get an abortion in her state without parental consent, so she goes to New York. And the brilliant 4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days (2007) takes place in Romania during the Ceaușescu era, where everyday life is oppressive.

Happening takes place in France in 1963, and the illegal status of abortion and the accompanying repression reflects our own times. The decision of the young student to have an abortion is honest and considered ... she isn't thoughtless, she is realistic. But the trauma is twofold, because abortion is a difficult decision and the procedures are risky (especially when you must go underground to get it done), and because of the social pressures on women to acquiesce to their situation as they are told to. Happening doesn't hold back ... the various attempts at abortion are grisly and extremely upsetting, and it's a bit hard to recommend the film to anyone sensitive to these things. But it's also honest and necessary, and it's a surprise that it wasn't submitted to the Oscars as the French submission. They sent Titane, another unsettling film that isn't as good as Happening. Titane was explicitly in the body horror genre ... in Happening, writer/directorAudrey Diwan manages to show how an unwanted pregnancy fits into that genre as well, almost accidentally.

This was the first time I saw Anamaria Vartolomei, and she is excellent. The legendary Sandrine Bonnaire turns up late in the film as an abortionist. It's always good to encounter new-to-me talents like Diwan and Vartolmei, even when the film is as disturbing as Happening.

 

undine (christian petzold, 2020)

A friend recommended this, and I came to it cold ... knew nothing about it, never seen any movies from director Christian Petzold, knew none of the actors. It's one of my favorite ways to watch a new-to-me film, but I think I might have needed some context.

Undines are water nymphs ... the little mermaid is an example ... and I'm not sure if Petzold embellished the legend or not, but the titular Undine in his movie (played by Paula Beer) has some specifics related to love with a human. None of it was very clear to me, which is where context might have helped. At the beginning of the movie, when a man is breaking off a relationship with Undine, she says that means she must kill him, as if that's something everyone knows. I just went with it, knowing from the start that I'd be in the dark about the fantasy elements.

And it was an intriguing watch, no matter what I was missing. Beer is excellent, and Petzold creates an atmosphere that is a good blend of reality and mythology. Undine's relationships with men are both romantic and mysterious, thanks to the underlying myth, and if I never quite got the idea, I was able to go with it anyway. Undine is the kind of movie that often bothers me, yet for some reason this time I bought into what I was watching.