Films I Watched This Week — Nov 18–24, 2024
The Seventh Seal (1957)
Ingmar Bergman's The Seventh Seal immediately became a classic staple in art film culture, and couldn't have been released at a more perfect time. Film-goers were startled with The Seventh Seal's upsetting imagery, ghastly symbolism, existential dialogue, and religious-ethical concerns in a possibly godforsaken universe. The films iconic shot of Death playing chess with a Knight, and of its climatic sequence of the knight and of his followers being led away over the hills in a solemn dance of death, became a landmark in pop culture history. The Seventh Seal's symbolism and brooding uncompromising subject matter was immediately apprehensible to people trained in literary culture who were just beginning to discover the ‘art’ of film, along with critics and readers of Cahiers du Cinema who were discovering Bergman for the first time. With the rise of the Auteur Theory The Seventh Seal suddenly became the quintessential art film of high school and college literature courses discovering Bergman's recurring themes such as 'The fear of death' and the 'absence of God' which were grim subjects the director would endlessly explore throughout his career. This is a bleak uncompromising film which explores the simplicity of good and evil, along with the complexity of its tormenting hero, who struggles with such spiritual questions of faith and doubt; which clearly represents Bergman himself. Bergman was raised in a very strict Lutheran household where his father was a stern conservative parish minister with strict parenting rules. Growing up, Bergman would describe his home as a fortress of restriction and on several occasions Bergman was locked up in dark closets for infractions like wetting the bed. Throughout his early years Bergman became fascinated by the themes of death and the bleak side of humanity which brought upon his fascination with Adolf Hitler and the horrors of the holocaust. Even though he was raised in a devout Lutheran household, Bergman later stated that he lost his faith at age eight, and only came to terms with this fact while filming Winter Light. And so when filming The Seventh Seal he was still at the cross-roads with his spiritual identity while continuing to come to terms with his faith. Throughout The Seventh Seal Bergman purposely has characters asking questions but not be given the answers; because the director himself didn't know them. Even the Grim Reaper, the legendary 'Angel of Death' can't reveal any of these universal questions that humans seek to discover, and when the knight continues asking him questions, Death calmly responds, "You ask too many questions."
The Seventh Seal (1957) is on MY TOP 300 FILMS LIST
History Is Made at Night (1937)
A underrated genre cocktail that mixes romance, noir, tragedy, comedy, melodrama and disaster film. And it pulls it off quite successfully with wonderful performances by Charles Boyer and Jean Arthur making Frank Borzage's film one of his most entertaining and charming hidden gems.
The Name of the Rose (1986)
There are so many good things in The Name of the Rose: the performances, the reconstruction of the period, the gloomy overall feeling of medieval times. The story is a little muddled, and he ending is a bit contrived, but the film is overall a beautifully photographed enthralling murder mystery.
Challengers (2024)
“You don’t know what tennis is,” Tashi says during one of her first encounters with Art and Patrick. “It’s a relationship.”
I havent felt this much sexual passion, excitement and inner anguish for a romantic throuple since François Truffaut's Jules and Jim back in 1962. And like that film, Challengers, by Italian director Luca Guadagnino, it tells a psychosexual tale of manipulation, deceit, lust and romance. Art is the husband, a pushover who devotes to earning his wife’s love and approval, which hinges entirely on his deteriorating athletic performance. Patrick is a charming, washed-up hustler whose relationships are volatile and self-destructive. The two men ruined their homoerotic relationship competing with eachother outside of the tennis court, all for the trophy of Tasha. Over the course of the film the trio exploit one another for their own personal gain, whether romantic or tennis-related. And yet only one is the real puppeteer of the three who has stringed the other two along since the beginning. That one is Tashi, the Lady Macbeth of the story, a manipulative, domineering, unpredictable bitch who is willing to do what it takes, even destroy lives, to get that orgasmic intensity just to see what she calls "Good fucking tennis." This is the best film of the year.
Culloden (1964)
Watched Culloden, a 1964 docudrama directed by Peter Watkins who also did the docudrama The War Game, Watkins masterpiece, which depicted a hypothetical nuclear attack on a futuristic England. Culloden instead goes back in time and depicts the 1746 Battle of Culloden, the final engagement of the Jacobite rising of 1745 which saw the Jacobite Army be brutally slaughtered by government troops "as one of the most mishandled and brutal battles ever fought in Britain." Culloden was hailed as a breakthrough for its presentation of a historical event in the style of modern TV war reporting, as well as its use of non-professional actors. It was also the directors first use of his "docudrama" style in which actors portray historical characters being interviewed by filmmakers on the scene as though it were happening in front of news cameras. The film is a cry against war and nationalism in any form, and the film continually questions why wars are fought, what the soldiers believe, and how the authorities indoctrinate the men into wanting to fight for their king.
Pearl (2022)
Watched Ti West's Pearl, which is a pre-sequel to his grindhouse horror homage X (2022), and I have to say, it is superior. Pearls demented and charming Wizard of Oz/Carrie like horror is all the more disturbing because it doesn’t look like a horror movie. Its vivid and lush technicolor cinematography brings to mind the style of Powell and Pressburger or the musicals of Vincente Minnelli. Mia Goth dominates the film, creating one of the most unforgettable characters in modern horror and a performance that will be ranked as one for the ages.
Downhill Racer (1969)
Michael Richie's Downhill Racer (1969) is better than most sports films since it avoids sentimentality and condemns the manipulative underdog cliché Rocky would later make the norm to the sports genre. Like all leads in The New Hollywood era such as Nicholson in Five Easy Pieces, Beatty in Bonnie and Clyde, and Hoffman in The Graduate, the lead hero is not romanticized or likeable, but rather an arrogant, unsympathetic egotistical anti-hero.
A Touch of Sin (2013)
Jia Zhangke's A Touch of Zin presents four separate stories of outcasts driven by violence because of social unrest or class injustices. The director presents a nihilistic and disturbing perspective on what the great economic expansion of modern China is doing to the majority of its people. The fact that each story is based on actual events adds even greater power to the weight of each story.
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