22. Diary of a Country Priest (1951)

I have decided to deviate from the alphabetical list as Filmspotting is doing a Robert Bresson marathon and 4 of the 5 films they are watching are in the 1001 list. Seemed silly not to join in with their mini marathon.

First up is the first in Bresson's 'prison trilogy'. It tells the story of a young priest who, despite being gravely ill, takes up priestly duties in the country parish of Ambricourt. Here he tries fecklessly to convert the godless parishioners back to faith. He becomes involved in the complex relationships of a local count, his wife, his mistress and his daughter.

It's an intensely personal tale of the priest's solitude and his personal prison. There isn't a great deal of dialogue and the story is narrated by the priest through excerpts from his diary. Several time he enters houses and then the scene is cut back to him leaving, with more exposition about what went on inside.
The soundtrack is sparse too. There is little music, but a great use of sound effects. The film is actually verging on a silent movie. There is an awful lot of mugging.

I get that it all adds to the solitude of the priest, but it was all a bit much for me and I found it largely tedious. I can appreciate the look of the film though and I'm just hoping his later works are a little less somnolent!

21. Ai No Corrida/In the Realm of the Senses(1976)

Former street prostitute, Sada, gets a job as a serving girl in a reputable tea house. Not before long, she begins an illicit affair with the Madam's husband, Kichi-zo. They carry out this affair at another house, where their sexual trysts become more and more brazen. They shag in public, she gets him to shag an old serving woman, geishas join them, there's an interesting disappearing egg trick! Mind boggling.

He is besotted with her and her youth. She is pretty much besotted with his cock and becomes extremely possessive of this side of him, forbidding him to have sexual relations with his wife. Her jealousy gets the better of her and she threatens to cut off his member and keep it inside her. Meanwhile, their sex games are becoming more and more profane and they delve into asphyxiation games. Eventually these are taken too far and she strangles him, with his encouragement. She then cuts off his penis and places it inside her for keepsakes!

These scenes are filmed very graphically, but it is all lit and shown quite beautifully never diverging from the director's (Nagisa Oshima) mis-en-scene. In fact the whole glowing pallet and the tiny room locations add to the sexual frenzy, though the extreme relationship is never sexy.

As l'amour fou themes go, this is on the clinically insane side of the scale. It's certainly worth a watch, just for it's brazen, warts and all look. What makes it all the more bonkers is the fact that it's based on a true story!

She's only gone and done it!

20. Aguirre:The Wrath of God (1972)

Or; A Mutiny on the Amazon; Flotilla the Hun or One Goes Mad in a Boat.

After conquering Peru, a splinter army of Spanish soldiers decide to descend the Andes and follow the Amazon on a quest to find El Dorado, the mythical city of gold.
Mutiny and madness descend upon them, especially Aguirre, the second-in-command, who incites the mutiny. He's the wrath of God dontyaknow?! He's also a rather overbearing and pervy father. Eventually the group is picked off by the jungle through fever and starvation, but mostly by the cannibal natives who are rather handy with a spear.

It took me a good while to watch this film and the only enjoyment I was getting was from the naps it provided, but once it gets going, it's an enjoyable study of a megalomaniac moving into Bonkersville. To be fair, he never really lived that far away from there!

Herzog's eye for nature is prevalent throughout as the jungle slowly envelops the flotilla. The location shoot was apparently fraught with disaster and real life mutiny. Klaus Kinski threatened to walk. Werner Herzog threatened to shoot him if he did. Such real life drama has only added to the intensity of the film and the performances.

A degree of suspension of disbelief is necessary to cope with some ludicrousies. The two women in the group are spotless with whiter than white lacy frills to boot! A few of these 'spaniards' have a very Aryan look about them. Especially Kinski. Also when a captured native seems to be aware of the location of El Dorado and even points in the direction of the river bank he came from, they kill him because he drops the bible they try to convert him with (a bit harsh), then they just carry on down the river.

So, have patience. It is a slow start, but it's worth it in the end.

...and so's my wife!

19. L'Age D'Or (1930)

The first and most acclaimed of the, fortunately few, surrealist feature films. It was made as a follow up to Buñuel and Dali's Un Chien Andalou, however they fell out during production so it is mostly accredited to Buñuel.

Being surreal, it focuses on dreamlike sequences and only shows the absurd rather than the real. Even so, like a dream, there are a couple of common threads running through the film. The surrealist notion of l'amour fou (mad love) is shown between a pair of lovers who can't seem to find time to get it on.
The other thread is a theme of extreme violence and cruelty, mostly to women and children and even now, quite shocking. A man slapping a lady for spilling a drop of wine on him, the same man pushing a blind man to the ground for a laugh and another man shooting a child for jokingly knocking his cigarette out of his hand. No wonder it was banned for 50 years following it's first public showings.

The absurdism prevails in the film from start to finish. I'm not sure it's supposed to be understood and nor do I care. Understanding madness is not a healthy pastime!

A cow in a bed. One of many absurdities.

18. The African Queen (1951)

A prim and proper missionary and a leery ship's captain are thrown together by circumstance in this excellent adventure by John Huston.

Hepburn plays Rose, a spinster who is helping her Reverend brother out at a mission in Africa. It's the onset of World War I and the local village is burnt down by German soldiers and the villagers either flee or are captured by the German army. This drives the reverend brother insane and to his death.
Bogart plays Charlie, a local ship's captain who delivers the mail. He takes Rose on board his ship t escape down river in order to sit the war out in safety. Rose has other plans. Learning that Charlie has explosives on board, she hatches a plot to destroy a German ship which is patrolling a lake down the wild river.

The adventure tale takes a back seat to the developing relationship with these polar opposites and their effect on each other. Once Rose experiences going down the white water rapids for the first time, her cool exterior begins to vanish. "I never dreamed that any mere physical experience could be so stimulating!" Indeed. He too changes. After he gets drunk one night and gives her what for, she pours all his gin away into the river. The sober Charlie is also seemingly seduced by Rose. As her looks become more dishevelled, he shaves and somewhere in the middle they meet and fall in love.

It is great chemistry between the two leads. Both big veteran stars and do not outshine each other, though it was Bogart who won his only Oscar for his performance. The repartee is at it's best when they are at each others throats.

Shot on location in Africa, the camera has plenty to point at as well as it's stars. The ship steaming down the rapid river and the sights from the riverbank all add to the sumptuous feast created by the sparkling script.

Definitely one to watch. Great adventure, witty riposte and not an ounce of sentimentality.

Damned waste of good gin!

17. An Affair to Remember (1957)

Cary Grant and Deborah Kerr star in this sentimental romance. Two strangers meet on a luxury cruise and fall in love, though both are involved with someone else. At the end of their trip, they agree to sort their lives out and meet, in six months, at the top of the Empire State building. Grant keeps the appointment, but Kerr is hit by a car on the way there. She is paralysed and is too proud to tell him. He believes she has forsaken him and decided to stay with her partner.

It's a film of two halves. The first, on the ship, is the more successful as a bit of a screwball comedy. Grant woos Kerr much to her protest and then they make a rubbish attempt at keeping the affair a secret from the other passengers. Unfortunately it's sentimentality outweighs its comedy.
The second half really lets it down. The reformed playboy begins to paint again and Kerr's crippled nightclub singer teaches a children's choir. Yep, if it wasn't sentimental enough, let's add some kids singing. Impoverished kids at that! We are talking diabetic dangers of sickly sweet.
The songs are really out of place. It's like they have been thrown in because the studio demanded a musical number or 3. It's not even Ker singing her parts. Why bother?

There are many things that don't ring true. The worst culprits are; their jilted partners understanding, Grant's paint-by-numbers 'masterpieces' and the very odd end line. Cary Grant's leading man attraction always troubles me too. Creosoted up like a young David Dickinson and that annoying voice that delivers lines so flatly. It's much better in parody by Tony Curtis in Some Like It Hot.

This just isn't a film for me. It tries to be like the brilliant screwball comedies of the time, but over eggs the pudding with the crass sentimental 'will they/wont they?' love story.

Thumbs down.

 "If you can paint I can walk- anything can happen, right?"

Actually, I'm not quite sure that's a good comparison.



16. The Adventures of Robin Hood (1938)

Keep your Kevin Costners, your Disney foxes and your dodgy Russel Crowe accents. 1938 gave us the best and still unmatched Robin of Loxely in Errol Flynn.

What is there to say? It's a camp swashbuckling costume drama with a gallop of romp. It's the traditional story, though the Sheriff of Nottingham is a cowardly underling to the evil Prince John. Errol Flynn IS Robin. Swarve and dashing. The right mix of light-hearted trickster, trellis climbing romantic and heartened rebel leader. Cuts a fine figure in tights too! Olivia de Havilland is just damn gorgeous in technicolour and plays Marion well.

Great set action pieces, lovingly shot and a righteous conclusion where the good triumph and the hero gets the girl. Perfect Sunday afternoon fodder.

Really though, you think the costume department would be wary of VPLs seeing as they made him wear tights!

Patric Knowles as Will Scarlet. A rather camp man if ever I saw one. Plays the lute whilst Robin duels with Little John and insists on wearing vivid red whilst everyone else is camouflaged in Lincoln green!