TRANCE

2013; directed by Danny Boyle; adapted by Joe Ahearne and John Hodge; 97 mins

When Trance came out, it seemed to garner mediocre reviews, which was a surprise in light of the ongoing Danny Boyle love tsunami that had started with Slumdog Millionaire and continued on through 127 Hours and that incredible Olympic opening ceremony. I love this movie! Not only that but this is my favourite of Boyle’s movies from the last decade*, alongside T2 Trainspotting. It’s just enormous fun! It’s proper, naughty, violent, sexy, twisty, turn-y entertainment for grown-ups and what’s wrong with that?

STRANGER BY THE LAKE

2013; written and directed by Alain Guiraudie; 100 mins

A gay, French, arthouse, crime, thriller-but-not-exactly. Before I say this next thing, believe me, there is no covert judgement from me as my knowledge of gay cinema is limited and I cannot, in all good conscience, pretend that it isn’t in part because of an ever-decreasing but extant, shameful “Jesus! It’ll turn me gay!” attitude. However! If you only see one gay movie in your life – make it Stranger by the Lake! What a fucking awesome movie! One of the best of the decade, easily.

EXPLOITATION DOUBLE FEATURE #3

A double bill of Italian sleaze which I knew absolutely nothing about going in. Part of the Exploitation Double Feature strand is to make me go outside the comfort zone more and more.

HIGH LIFE

2018; directed by Claire Denis; written by Claire Denis & Jean-Pol Fargeau and Geoff Cox; 113 mins

Well, Star Trek – this ain’t! The magnificent Claire Denis gives us a Ken Loach movie in space. A mouldy, grubby prison movie that features almost every human excretion there is: sweat, blood, piss, spunk, even breast milk is in there. Not quite by the bucketload but as near as dammit. High Life is a smashing together of the political and the existential as disaffected, transient criminal kids are sent off towards the infinity of black holes. Of course, thinking about it afterwards, there are a ton of undercurrents, connections and subsequent theses which reveal themselves. More than I can sensibly unpack here but whilst I don’t think it’s Denis’s best, it really is something else.

CRASH

1996; adapted and directed by David Cronenberg; 100 mins

I was under the impression that this J.G. Ballard adaptation was generally regarded as a classic and only Conservative MPs and The Daily Mail thought ill of it. Apparently not. There’s a lot of punters who don’t seem to like it’s style and find it a dead experience. Certainly it’s surface is dead. The main characters are drifting inside a spaghetti junction wilderness, leading dispassionate lives of barely acknowledged privilege. Underneath that netherworld, we have a strange emotional current constantly threatening to burst to the surface. It’s a macabre and unusual movie experience and one I’m more than keen to try again.

TROUBLE EVERY DAY

2001; directed by Claire Denis; written by Claire Denis and Jean-Pol Fargeau; 101 mins

The question around this movie seems to be: is it horror or not? A very good recent review of this by Lindsay Pugh says it’s horror but working outside genre conventions. I don’t agree with her that it feels more like “a tone poem or installation piece” than a proper film. It definitely feels like a cinematic story and very definitely a horror film but it is very easy to see why the critics at Cannes didn’t go for it. Twats.

IN THE REALM OF THE SENSES

1976; written and directed by Nagisa Ôshima; 102 mins

Ooh, crikey! That’s a lot of sex!

Fifty Shades Freed just came out on DVD and Blu-Ray here in NZ and that movie and its sister titles just fly off the shelves. Quite apart from the fact that they’re badly made, ineptly written and just plain not sexy, what you wanna tell the buyers is; “Look, there’s a whole range of high class filth out there!” What surprised me having to review the first two was just how tame they both were. There’s plenty of stuff from decades ago that’s way more subversive and explicit but also are infinitely better made movies.

THE MASTER

2012; written and directed by Paul Thomas Anderson; 132 mins

This is the concept album. This is Sandinista! This is Trout Mask Replica. It’s the one that threw everybody off the beaten track. Me definitely. I’ve seen it about eight or nine times but never really got it. Punch-Drunk Love was a departure from the established PTA style that we thought we knew (big, brash, highly-strung ensemble filmmaking). There Will Be Blood was even more different. Both of them still recognisably PTA features, though. Still both had the themes, the look, the sound. This is a distant, inscrutable chamber piece that stops and starts. No great long takes of any particular virtuosity, no attempt to make any bold statements or wow the crowds with directorial flourish. Just a spare, slightly lairy, low hum of a film.

sex, lies and videotape

1989; written and directed by Steven Soderbergh; 100 mins

God damn! This long-awaited viewing of Steven Soderbergh‘s Palme d’Or winning and surprisingly confident debut movie* was well worth it! Like a sleek mix of Bleak Moments and prototype 90s Indie film, for a movie that’s got yuppies talking about heavy petting, it’s one of the most gripping and sexy movies I’ve seen since forever ago!

SHIVERS

1975; written and directed by David Cronenberg; 83 mins

Sex zombies! What a calling card! Well… it’s either a calculated calling card, designed to shock and appall the uninitiated and please the in-crowd or just a horror flick with brains made by someone unselfconsciously operating way, way beyond the bounds of good taste. Either way, it was grubby thinktrash of the highest order!