Fellini 8 1/2****
I have seen this movie at least 3 times in the last 30 years, I remember the first time, I understood very little. But remembered a jumble of pictures with fantastic music.
As I looked through the dvd's I found it in the pile. Wanted to listen to the sound track and reviewed it again. I remember almost nothing from the the visuals except the Saraphina image with the little boys. These are wonderful characters, each one with so much life and implied stories behind their words. Thats why I understood very little when I was in high school. Not enough back ground to know what adults are talking about.
I wonder if teenagers watching this movie would understand whats going on? Likely so, because I think each generation has a more precocious knowledge about sex and sensuality, betrayals... I mean in our times, its going this direction, the more and more open, earlier, faster, more needs to feel and experiment with bodies.
Paperman **half
I watched "Paperman" yesterday.
Whats new in this movie is the young peoples love stories, so rough, so hard, so crude. This part is the contemporary part. The writer is not convincing he has nothing "writerly" about him, not in his text, not in his behavior. Compare this to "Venus" (with Peter O'Toole, ****)- also about friendship of an older man (very much older) with a young woman - a slutty white trash young woman - there is a lot more depth to the character from both sides. And we see layers, small steps of how the two approach each other. Here, there is no gradual steps, somehow, he made to ride this silly banana bike, and made this very cool couch with books (how could he have married his doctorly wife, if she couldn't "get" the coolness of this very pop object - that doesn't take much to invent but still cool and interesting compared to the retirement home new couch... etc etc) The film looks like a three step movie, writer block writer, met young chick w trashy boyfriend from a trashy hicky side of town, sadness of suicide (heavy baggage from the young girl side), invisible heavy baggage from the writers side, (what kind of man is he? can't even cook or kill a fish in a decent intelligent way?) Scenes are rough and caricatural. Like plain white sugar, and salt on a dry pita bread pouch as food.
Cut to the quick now, whats wrong with this film? I like the title very much. However, this is whats wrong with the film...
The writer having a writers block (we are not convinced that he is a writer, he does not do things writers do, does not observe, does not watch and listen, neither to nature nor to people around him, total insensitivity to his environment, can't cook... not even soup...), and neuroscience doctor wife (very dry, screaming like a lady going out of her mind, not intellectual nor sympathetic), very cute cool baby sitter (who accepted to baby sit in a house without a baby, very beautiful not in ordinary sweet way but with a memory face, dark eyes, with some edge), chicken shit boyfriend (no memory of this character which is what chicken shits are like by definition), well, paper characters, awkward 3 point turn storyline, not very convincing. Shallow character, shallow thoughts.
However, I also just watched "Swimming Pool" with Charlotte Rampling as popular writer of murder plots with a writers block.
The Swimming Pool ***
Charlotte Rampling makes a much more convincing character as a writer.
She enjoys eating good food. Curious about a young girl even though she is unfriendly and does not want this buxomy sex crazed girl to be sharing a house with her... the movie is vastly watchable from the writers eye, from the buxomy gal (very watchable, the girl is natural and cool with also spoken and unspoken baggage, she's more sassy than the writer, daughter of king of orgy, she knows a few things that we don't know and the writer could only try to find out - what character without baggage could make a film interesting?) even the waiter, the gardener, the midget neighbor, everyone is interesting with untold stories and secrets in this movie.
The setting, sweet and dainty, with different types of people - the service people and the served - as in any society would be, is a very pretty French little town, all very watchable.
This movie implies a mini universe that makes it more "edible" - say a falafel with friend aubergine w sauce - as compared to the "paper man" universe of sugar candied paper with unidentified labelled poetic/complex/sad food, we are looking on from the outside from beginning to end.
Venus ****
with Peter O'Toole
I would watch it again.
Great humanity all set in a drab little sad retirement small house in London.
Humourous and sexy. The movie has many little high lights of audacity thats correct to the situation. For example, the young woman wants Maurice (O'Tooles old retiring actor character) to do her a favor, as she has nothing to offer him, nothing much - really - she puts her hand under her skirt and offers her finger for Maurice to smell... hahahahahah
As O'Toole says in the movie, when you are this old and without money, its no small feat to get the interest / or entertain a young woman.
Conversely, when you are a poor young poorly educated young woman thrown out of the house by your mother stuck in a retiring uncles house... and no money, no job, its quite a feat too to entertain yourself and others.
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