6 Reviews: Bluebeard, Sisters, Scarlet Empress and more!
the lovely Bae Doona
Take Care of My Cat (2002)
6.9/10
This South Korean film about the lives of 5 women the first year after they graduate from high school is nicely observed. It may not be incredible or groundbreaking but it has a lot more tact than something than say The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants. It is mature and deals with issues that are not superficial like many coming-of-age films. Two of the five girls are twins who provide nothing more than some comic relief. They should have been left out of the film entirely and replaced with another character. The three characters who are actual characters are Tae-hie (Bae Doona), Hye-ju (Yu-won Lee) and Ji-young (Ji-young Ok). Tae-hie works for her father for no money. She wants out of her family but does not know where to go. She has a slightly rebellious streak but her main concern is keeping her group of friends together. Hye-ju has gotten a job thanks to family connections and because of it has a false sense of superiority. She treats her boyfriend like an unwanted pet and gets off on asserting her stability to her friends. In glimpses we can see that she needs to feel this way so she does not crumble but she is easily the most frustrating of the friends. Ji-young is very poor and spends most of the film trying to find a job and figure out where her life is going.
Wendy Hiller and Roger Livesy
I Know Where I’m Going! (1945)
6/10
This Powell-Pressburger film is worth seeing mainly for the scenery of the Hebrides. The film features documentary like footage of the place combined with some effects and a lot of on location shooting. The plot concerns a woman named Joan (Wendy Hiller) who, as the film proclaims, knows where she is going. She has financial stability thanks to her father but has further ambitions when she is engaged to a rich industrialist she has never met. The film wonderfully employs narration at the beginning and has a creative credit sequence. Joan cannot reach the island of Kiloran because of the weather and is stuck with residents of the Hebrides which include a naval officer named Torquil (Roger Livesy) and others who all have a lifestyle that consists of priorities foreign to Joan.
The film does a really nice job of showing how people form a unique relationship with a place and with their culture. The culture we belong to heavily impacts us and the film displays that nicely. Hiller is great in the title role and the supporting cast delivers as well. Overall while I liked the film I cannot say I loved it. For no particular reason, my interest was only taken so far. It might be because while Joan’s ambition is misguided, by the end it is neutered and seems to say up to a point that women should not have ambition. Torquil’s way of thinking has a lot of validity to it and deals heavily with a connection to nature and a distance from the importance of money. However his morals are still a bit too old-fashioned and it being the 40’s still makes it hard to excuse. Thus, it is a little hard to entirely root for the two. Powell and Pressburger make films that have so much charm though that to a degree they are impossible to resist. While nothing I have seen from them comes even close to A Matter of Life and Death (Stairway to Heaven), this was still decent.
Peter Lorre in his first English speaking role
The Man Who Knew Too Much (1934)
6.7/10
The original telling of this story by Hitchcock is a wonderful combination of suspense set pieces and visual humor. The film blends the two very well. The beginning of the film, while entertaining, is a bit too rushed and its runtime of 75 minutes surely has something to do with it. 10 additional minutes of set-up would have been nice and it is additionally frustrating because the little we got was quite good. The end of the film is a failed attempt at prolonged intensity through the absence of visuals and the vague sense of massive gunfire. It becomes boring after a while which is a shame because the middle of the film is really impressive.
Certain scenes like the dentist’s office, the hypnosis scene, the chair throwing scene and more were suspenseful but also very funny. This was Peter Lorre’s first English speaking role and he had to perform phonetically. Soon after, he moved to America attempting to establish a career in Hollywood. I wrote a paper on Peter Lorre and analyzed his typecasting. He is one of my all time favorite actors and seeing him in anything is consistently fascinating. While I have not seen the remake, this original film has an air of whimsy and fun surrounding it that makes me wonder how much I will like the remake.
Dominique Thomas and Lola Creton
Bluebeard (2010)
8/10
Catherine Breillat is well known for her extensive exploration of female sexuality and women’s place in the world. Here she takes Perrault’s classic fairy tale Bluebeard and subverts it by focusing on the girl and by placing a framing story which highlights the violent and sexual content contained beneath the surface in fairytales which are exposed to children. Breillat uses uncharacteristic restraint to examine how women use what they have to assert themselves. Sisters Marie-Catherine (Lola Creton) and Anne (Daphne Baiwir) have no control over their lives. At the start of the film they are kicked out of their school because the death of their father makes tuition payments impossible. While Anne merely complains about their condition, Marie-Catherine is determined to change her status and she does so by becoming the bride of the notorious Bluebeard whose other wives have mysteriously vanished. Her interaction with him is brimming with tension through calmness and stationary blocking. She is honest with him and maintains control through that. The framing story involves two sisters in the 1950’s reading the story and providing a young and innocent commentary.
Breillat’s normal penchant for graphic sex is put on hold here which works well with the story. Fairy tales do not feature graphic sex but feature sexual tension and violence through subtext. Keeping everything at a distance makes the tale read as it would read to the children; except we know the feelings really being dealt with. Dominque Thomas who is massive and towers over Creton plays Bluebeard as someone with a compulsion who genuinely needs connection and forgiveness. The performances of Creton and of Marilou Lopes-Benites as the modern younger sister are both exceptional for different reasons. Creton stands outside of time or age; she is purposely wooden and filled with curiosity and control. The very young Benites is one of the most natural young actresses to be seen in a film; she is a small wonder.
The mise-en-scene is sparse and very stationary as if the fairy tale is aware it is part of an artificial story. It falters slightly in its dropping of the sisterly story within the tale. Bluebeard is a film based on restraint, minimalism and the examination of consuming fairytales and the role of women within them and it is well worth seeing.
Marlene Dietrich playing innocence
The Scarlet Empress (1934)
9.2/10
The very last Pre-Code film, The Scarlet Empress could very well be the oddest early American film in existence. It is a camp film? Are we supposed to take this seriously? Is this a satire? There are no real answers because it is a bit of everything. Like Bluebeard, The Scarlet Empress examines how women attempt to gain control in a man’s world and how they can make that world every bit their own. Marlene Dietrich playing against type in the first half of the film is the wide-eyed innocent Sophia who has been chosen to become the wife of Grand Duke Peter in Russia, making her Catherine the Great. After discovering that Peter is insane and that her life in Russia is not turning out as expected, she learns how to gain control in the empire in order to prevent her exile or death by Peter with the death of the Empress.
The film surprisingly features nudity and torture scenes in an early opening sequence which are easily the most graphic images to be found in Pre-Code. Director Josef von Sternberg and muse Dietrich pull out all of the stops. The set design is nearly Expressionistic and extreme in its scale and beauty. The costumes are a treat as usual with historical films. The one word to describe the film is extravagant; in every sense of the word.
The performance of Sam Jaffe as Peter is one big question mark. He plays Peter as if in a German Expressionist film; except he is not. It is baffling and equally so is Louise Dresser’s disastrous performance as Empress Elizabeth. Both only add to the oddities this film offers and represent that the flaws contained within the film only add to its wonder instead of detracting from it.
Sternberg’s mise-en-scene is masterful. His famous use of lighting is on full display as he constructs many images that are ahead of their time and iconic. There is also a unique use of Russian classical music in the film. This is one of those completely historically inaccurate films that get away with it. The film is not meant to be historically accurate but to be a spectacle and a showcase for Dietrich with a throw caution to the wind energy. Dietrich’s performance is sometimes a bit off (her innocence is displayed by one facial expression by her) but it is still one of her best performances. The scenes between her and Count Alexei (John Lodge) are sometimes laughable and other times sexy.
Describing this film is impossible; it needs to be seen to be believed. While the fact that it is so all over the place makes the film a bit problematic from an objective standpoint, this is an absolute one-of-a-kind treasure. Its bizarre tone and content provide a perfect send off to Pre-Code. It is easily one of my favorite films and I cannot wait to continue thinking about it.
Margot Kidder as Danielle/Dominique
Sisters (1973)
5/10
Brian De Palma’s Sisters is an exercise in Hitchcock homage that sometimes works but is ultimately all style and no substance. Personally I prefer his next film the even more cultish Phantom of the Paradise. Sisters succeeds in its innovative use of split-screen that very obviously represents more than just a stylistic device. Also, the beginning sequence is a great example of De Palma building up suspense and the pay-off is worth it. Jennifer Salt as Grace Collier comes off as a stereotypical feminist from a male’s perspective. Margot Kidder is pretty one-note despite giving a good performance. William Finley is easily the most engaging actor in the film. Just like in Phantom of the Paradise, his unique John Waters like look is hard to turn away from. The main problems lie in the inconsistent interest level and the realization towards the end that no character is worth caring about; it is hard to remain compelled in such circumstances. Sisters works as an exercise in Hitchcock homage but fails to make a mark as a film worth anything beyond its experimental stylistic devices.
Horrorphile
Cinema Enthusiast
Thoughts from a Cinephile
Thoughts from a TV Watcher
Horrorphile
I have Phantom of the Paradise but still haven't watched it, probably because I'm not the biggest musical fan.
Not sure if you'll like Dressed to Kill ...
Untouchables was solid, Mission Impossible was a little too Hollywood for me.
I forgot Carlito's Way!! Love that! Especially Sean Penn!
Black Dahlia was dreadful, but Femme Fatale was a guilty pleasure, as was, to a much lesser degree, Snake Eyes.
Raising Cain is also very good thriller fun!
Don't like Scarface?? Too violent? It's masterful cinema storytelling.
Cinema Enthusiast
Thoughts from a Cinephile
Thoughts from a TV Watcher
Horrorphile
Of course now an English version of "M" has recently been discovered, making it Lorre's first official English speaking film. I would be very interested in seeing how he dealt with that.
That's great that you wrote a paper on Lorre; I recently did an essay on how various websites have portrayed him. What aspects of his typecasting did you discuss?
Btw here is my Lorre-related Blog entries, hehe:
herald7.wordpress.com