Ink

Knowing nothing about this but that it was recommended for me by Netflix, I watched this film. From the image of the box cover I was expecting an Asian animated film. I was totally wrong. Then for the first half-hour of the film I was wondering what's going on.

This is a film that makes extensive use of dream sequences, occaisonal flash backs, and is narrated from several points of view. The story concerns two groups of dream makers fighting for the life of a small girl. The Storytellers put good dreams in people's sleep, and the Incubi are responsible for nightmares. The title character is neither, but is working for the Incubi.

The story telling is a bit heavy-handed. Although the film is overall dark in nature and scenes have a color wash to help classify them, there are no moral grays here, it's all black-and-white good-evil. Visually is is fairly clever. The Incubi have very odd masks that look something like television screens. None of the regular Storytellers or Incubi can do much to influence the world. They can put dreams in people's heads and the Incubi are shown whispering like the devil on someone's shoulder. So when the two fight, anything they destroy in the battle repairs itself immediately afterwards. Land on a table and break it? As soon as the person moves off the table jumps up and fixes itself.

This seems like the sort of movie that would appeal to a fan of The Dark Crystal or Mirrormask. There's an alternate world with different projections of people (awake verus asleep), a big good versus evil battle, and a child-like bluntless to much of the story. Unlike those films, this is unrated but would probably warrant an R due to language and violence. The opening scene starts with a character screaming "fuck" repeatedly while driving, and then his car gets side- swiped while we watch from inside. Nothing too much for a modern teenager, but not what the MPAA considers PG-13.

Reportedly the makers of the film "embraced the piracy" and this is available easily for torrent download.

Three magical drums out of five.

Ink at IMDB

Mirrormask at IMDB

The Dark Crystal at IMDB

Final thought: there's probably A Christmas Carol connection that could be made, too

Sweet Movie (1974)

Sweet Movie (1974) at IMDB

After watching (some but not all) of this, my wife commented "That's a really strange movie and I've seen strange movies." I watched the whole thing.

It started out reminding me of something Monty Python might make. The opening lines, sung in I think Polish, go something like "Is that a pile of cow shit or my beloved?" Then we get a TV beauty contest / "Who wants to marry a billionaire?" show with the quirk that one of the event competitions involves a hymen inspection. The judge for that comes in riding a unicycle and the announcer, by way of explaining qualifications, lists famous people he delivered as an obstetrician. (During the examination the annoucer speaks of the judge's "deep insight".) Then the winning lady goes home with a Canadian(?) milk baron who looks and talks Texan.

Here's the thing about marrying virgins: they don't know what they are doing in bed. If this guy had married someone who had been around the block (so to speak) a few, well maybe more than a few, times then his new wife probably would not have reacted as poorly on the nuptial night. Someone with more experience, and with a strong gold-digging streak, might not have found the "wipe-down with disinfectant" foreplay as off- putting, nor the golden member of her new husband so shocking. Alas, that was just too much for this "Miss Canada".

Imagine John Waters, Pink Flamingos era Waters, with a dash of surreal, a decent budget, an arty look, and a long checklist of fetishes to include in a movie. (For the record, none of the sex and nudity came across as erotic to me, merely as strange.) You start to get the idea here.

There are two stories intercut here, with no strong connection between them. We don't even know if they take place contemporaneously. One is the saga of the beauty queen, which is about two-thirds of the movie, and the other is about the captain of a strange ship sailing around Amersterdam. The ship has a giant head of Karl Marx on the front, is named "SURVIVAL", and is painted in checkerboard. Oh, and it serves the purpose of a windowless van with the words "Free Candy" on the side. Apparently the actress that plays the captain was exiled from her native Poland for seven years over this role. It's that sort of movie.

I'm not sure I found a story here other than two slices-of-very-strange lives. There's a faint "sweet"ness (as in sugar) connection between the stories, but not so I'd like to answer an essay question listing them. There's also footage from two old newsreels, one dealing with a mass grave, one with a doctor demonstrating exercies for a baby.

Roger Ebert's original review, from 1975, is online at his Sun-Times site

Interesting. I didn't look for other reviews, but I did skim the essay in the booklet with the movie. That essay mentions how bold the director is using documentary footage of the bodies from the Katyn Forest Massacre, a Stalin atrocity not acknowledged by the Russians for about twenty years after "Sweet Movie" came out. It also goes into the Reichian orgone connection with the commune.

Ebert's review mentions:

In "Sweet Movie," there are several strands of subjects, none of them ever quite brought together (one problem is that his starring actress became so disturbed by the commune scenes that she walked out on the picture).

That would be the beauty queen. I can't say I blame her. Food fight turned golden shower, some non-simulated (bad) oral sex, and then scat play, I can't imagine it was like anything else she has ever done before or since. Oh, and she has suckle from a lactating woman.

The millionare, Mr. Kapital, is played by Animal House's Dean Wormer. It's been a long time since I've seen Animal House. I'd say this is the place to go if you want to see his cock in gold body paint, but then I realized I don't know if it is him or a double. I don't think they show the face in that scene.

If you watch it, you won't soon forget it. Two sugar filled beds out of five.

A local library find.

The Fifth Element (1997)

The Fifth Element at IMDB

An older movie from Luc Besson, this is a light sci-fi piece with pushing the limits of pg-13 sexiness. Bruce Willis is the main action guy, doing Bruce Willis things. Milla Jovovich is title character, an orange-haired scantily-clad creature. (Although called "divine" several times, it's never fully revealed if she is a literal god or just a very sophisticated engineered lifeform.) Gary Oldman is the evil businessman. There's a terrible evil threatening Earth and the weapon to stop it requires four stones representing air, water, earth, and fire, plus the "fifth element".

Visually this has a lot going for it. Concept designs were done by two French comic book masters. The costumes were designed by Jean-Paul Gaultier. Many bit parts are filled by professional models instead of actresses (probably Gaultier's influence). The characters who look like people in rubber suits are not the aliens but the main stars in Gaultier's clingy outfits.

There aren't any surprizing twists in the story but neither are there too many howlers or plot holes. Not an outright comedy, it is does definately have that "element" to it.

Four buttons out of five on an overly complicated gun.

Final thought: Luc Besson made "The Professional" (aka "Leon") to get funding for this

Solaris (Solyaris (1972))

Solaris, remade in 2002 with the same title, is a slow pyschological examination of a small group of people. It's considered a classic, and as a piece of Soviet-made science fiction cinema, it's an unsual piece. The story concerns scientists tasked with studying the mysterious exoplanet Solaris.

You know the way a Bond film opens? With a big action piece and then a visually arresting title sequence? This is the opposite of that. There were about four minutes of credits, untranslated white cyrillic on black background with classical music playing, then changing focus to Kris Kelvin taking a silent, meditative walk through nature. The first dialog is about seven minutes into the film, and the action doesn't shift to the vincinity of the title planet until about fourty minutes in.

By now you've probably noticed I had several oppotunities to check the time during this film. It's slow and long (nearly three hours). It really could have benefitted from more footage left on the editing room floor. The biggest waste of time is a long sequence with a former Solatisist driving around in Japan. It's not clear if he is a passenger or a driver (but he is sitting on the driver side for Japan). It's not clear why he is in Japan or even if we are supposed to notice the country (but really, there are road signs visible, so I think we are). It is clear that he's got a kid in the back seat who not only doesn't have a seatbelt on, he's crawling around. It is clear that that the guy is not only making a phone call, it's a video conference call (and if he's driving at the same time? gah!). And it's got way too much of just driving around with no apparent purpose to the story.

After the flight to Solaris (which is far shorter than the drive around Japan, and so uneventful even Kris, in the space craft, remarks on not noticing the launch), then things get more interesting. The film doesn't speed up, but the intrigue levels get bumped up a notch. Mysterious things are afoot and those in the know about them don't want to talk.

The author of the book, Stanislaw Lem, has reportedly not liked either of the adaptions and commented that he wrote a book called Solaris and not Love in Space. The book tries to express the difficulty that humans would have communicating with an alien intelligence. In this movie at least, the only signs of the alien intelligence are the "visitors" it projects into the space station and swirling seas on the planet below. Not only is it difficult to communicate with it, the characters are more involved with what's happening on the station than even trying to communicate (though they do make some attempts).

I'd give it three mysteriously reappeared wives out of five.

Solaris (1972) at IMDB

Solaris (2002) at IMDB

Final thought: isn't about to rush out and watch the 2002 version