My Carlos Saura discovery

My newest discovery is Spanish film director Carlos Saura. He’s not a discovery exactly since I’d seen one or two of his films years ago at the Montreal World Film Festival, one of the celebrated greats favoured by that now defunct fest. The film I remember best was Carmen, a flamenco reinterpretation of the opera and novel of the same name. Frankly, it didn’t stand out. It was only this weekend, with Criterion Channel’s deep dive into his works, that I gained a real appreciation of Saura, or at least of his earlier output, which was what was featured. (Carmen, or what I remembered from it, seems superficially lyrical by comparison.) These older films mix themes of existentialism, alienation, memory and the subconscious. They often star Geraldine Chaplin (photo), well known daughter of Charlie Chaplin who speaks in impeccable Spanish, thanks to a Swiss boarding school upbringing. (Chaplin was also a longtime paramour of Saura’s.) Here are some thumbnails: In the film Stress is Three (1960), a married couple and a male friend are driving to the beach. The problem is that it’s the husband who’s the real third wheel. In Honeycomb (1969) a couple act out games in their luxurious house but the viewer can’t tell whether their stories represent their real interpersonal dynamics. In The Garden of Delights (1970) one of the actors Saura uses repeatedly in his films, José Luis López Vázquez, is a high-powered businessman who suffers amnesia after an auto accident. His impairment, however, prevents family and business cronies from getting access to his personal fortune. In Anna and the Wolves (1973) Anna (Chaplin) is a hired children’s maid at a remote mansion with three eccentric if not emotionally damaged adult brothers vying for her affections.  In Cousin Angelica (1974) Luis (Vázquez) subconsciously slips in and out of present time to his 1930s upbringing and trauma during the Spanish Civil War. In Peppermint Frappe (1966), Vázquez and Chaplin are a doctor and nurse whose affections are at odds in a twist on the Pygmalion tale. In The Hunt (1966) four men go on a hunting excursion on a hot summer’s day where Machismo, in its original Spanish, meaning, is put on full display. 

More recently watched films:

Putney Swope: Robert Downey Sr.’s 1969 mashup of advertising and the Black Power movement is scene after scene of absurdist comedy where every character gets their eventual comeuppance.

Mysteries of the Organism: Serbian director Dušan Makavejev’s 1971 film flits between his native Yugoslavia and America in a potpourri of themes, from the philosophy of renowned psychoanalyst Wilhelm Reich to political repression and sexuality, with music from countercultural group The Fugs. It’s deep alright but you wouldn’t know it from its overlayer of black comedy.  

Every Man for Himself: Jean-Luc Godard’s 1979 film features a director “Godard” – a bastard who treats his women savagely and says he makes films because “I can’t bear to do nothing.” With Isabelle Huppert and Nathalie Baye this film about an empty character is about as cynical as you can get.

Le Petit Soldat (The Little Soldier): Godard’s 1959 film about a French operative, Bruno (Michel Subor) on the home front during the Algerian War, is a nasty spy drama. Bruno, who thinks himself something of an intellectual, is given to musings such as “the dark blue sky reminded me of that Klee painting.”

Gruesome look into Ukraine - Russia conflict

A film that brings home the conflict between Ukraine and Russia in all its searing hatred is Donbass. Released recently on the Criterion Channel the movie was actually made long before the present Russian invasion – in 2018 in fact – but when there was still simmering anger and military action in Ukraine’s eastern region, known as Donbass, from an earlier Russian incursion. Ukrainian director Sergei Loznitsa won best director at Cannes for this. Donbass is one of those films so realistic it seems like a documentary and where you ask yourself, 'how can they have acted out these scenes?' There are 13 segments or chapters that show various incidents. In one, a German TV crew rolls up to a Ukrainian armored personnel carrier. The journalist asks who’s in charge and the crew mock him by each taking a turn saying, “I’m in charge…No, I’m in charge!” Just as the reporter starts interviewing the real officer in charge a shell explodes in their midst, killing them all. Many of the scenes are filmed in alleged Russian-occupied territory (though really not shot there) and it’s surprising how loyal the citizens are to Russia and not Ukraine. A boisterous bride at a wedding praises to the hilt all the Russian defenders of the town. A captured Ukrainian soldier (photo) is tied to a lamp post and assaulted by a variety of ordinary citizens, including the most mild-mannered housewives just walking along the street otherwise going about their business. A businessman has his SUV captured by Russian occupying forces but they won’t return it to him unless he offers up his bank savings to help finance the new civil “defense” protecting him. He’s taken to a hall where a couple of dozen other businesspeople are frantically phoning their banks pleading the same. An intercity bus is stopped at a roadblock, only the men are ordered out, made to strip and are immediately conscripted into the army. Virtually all of the scenes, even ones of merriment like the wedding, are awful in the underlying sentiment of hate that’s either expressed or implied. And they’re so otherwise real because all the other aspects of modern life go on as usual, whether it be people driving their contemporary model cars, shopping or taking selfies.

More recently watched films:

Seconds: John Frankenheimer’s 1966 flic is a cut above and then some to his more celebrated The Manchurian Candidate (see my Aug 16 post). This is a Kafkaesque mind bender starring of all people Rock Hudson whose character undergoes an involuntary life change - yup.

Hit and Run: Hugo Haas’s 1952 film noir is a clever twist on the plot of The Postman Always Rings Twice, so well-acted and paced you’ll be as mystified as the characters are about one of their real identities.

Look Back in Anger: Tony Richardson’s 1959 remake of John Osborne’s famous play, the seminal film of the British New Wave, has a performance by Richard Burton so intense you’ll feel almost seared. No wonder Burton is considered one of the world’s forever best actors.

A Taste of Honey: Also by Richardson this 1961 film introduced the famed of-the-era Rita Tushingham as a free spirited schoolgirl in industrial Manchester with a story that, for its time, broke racial and gay barriers.

After the Fox: This 1966 comedy by otherwise dramatic film director Vittorio de Sica and starring Peter Sellers and bombshell Britt Ekland had all the makings of a send-up of 1960s spy thrillers. But, that is,  for an interminable put-you-to-sleep plot. The highlight, though, is actor Victor Mature, a kind of Dean Martin on steroids.

Damnation: Hungarian director Bela Tarr’s 1988 flic seems the archtypical slow-moving Eastern European meditation on the bleakness of the human condition. Not especially my forte but even I found this interesting.