Reviews

(Warning: This commentary contains spoilers.)

Francois Ozon's film is a calming pleasure. Each time I see a film of this kind (and by that I mean ‘fresh,' ‘sensuous' and ‘gentle,' like `Une affaire pornographique'), I cannot help but think that it is a shame that Hollywood wastes so much of its time making the dross that it does. Point taken, as Stanley Kauffmann illustrated in a recent review, that many of the most skilled artists and craftsmen currently working in film are in Hollywood and doing a good job. But there's a gaping abyss between those that do their jobs well and those that can actually bring pleasure to a viewer. I don't want to be spending my time in the theater grabbing at straws, hoping I can locate this or that part of a film that is effective, all the while aware that the film as a whole feels like it came out of a hole. For the last 100 years, the pinnacles of film have shown that this medium is best viewed as erotic, not intellectual or philosophical or religious or political. Ozon clearly accepts this point. He wishes to grip not the mind, but the senses; for him, nothing better than the camera lens captures the perils of the body.

`Sous le Sable' follows the pains and denials of a middle-aged woman as she tries to come to grips with the death of her husband. The woman, embodied, or even better, ‘brought to flesh' by the venerable Charlotte Rampling, knows he is gone, but is tricked by her senses. She ‘feels' him at every turn-she has became so accustomed to him, to his daily routines, the sounds of his voice, the way his thick hands moved on her body, that her psyche cannot let loose--and we come to ‘feel' him with her. Her memories and emotions create a projection of him that is so real and seductive that the strict fact of his death can never gain stable ground in her mind. Moments of clarity, in which the viewer is aware that she must knows he's gone, are ever so brief, and never consist of her stating outright that he is dead. Emblematic of this struggle with reality is her incessant shifting back and forth between ‘past' and ‘present' verb tenses. In her lucid moments, her husband ‘was' this and ‘did' that. But when the weight of despair and emotional attachment become overbearing, she says that he ‘is' and ‘does.'

This shifting of tenses is a nice, subtle touch in the film and only serves to show that the devices and techniques employed by it, whether linguistic, narrative or cinematographic, are all for a purpose. This may sound whinny, but devices and techniques used strictly to call attention to themselves or to those making the film have become tiresome, and nothing irritates me more. For the Coen brothers, abuse of cinematic trickery has translated into success, financial and even critical. `Sous le Sable' has no such trickery, and serves to highlight the differences between the opposing sensibilities at the heart of French and American independent or ‘art' cinema.

Ozon's film is sparse in its economy. Music is used sparingly, and when it is used, it does not bombard or intrude. Furthermore, the performances are reserved (had this been an American film, Charlotte Rampling would have been coaxed to pull her hair out and run naked in the streets to make her delusional state more ‘convincing' and ‘engaging'). But best of all, the film is short (at 1 hour, 40 minutes, the film might these days be classified as a ‘short'), and this means that nothing included should have been excluded. The intense scenes (of despair and even embarrassment) are counter-balanced with humor (Rampling's laughter hits points that are paradoxically funny and tragic), delight and sensuousness, and as a result, the intensity of the material is not violent. It all fits in nicely.

As I mentioned at the outset, the film is actually quite soothing and, I might even say, hopeful. True, referring to a film in which the protagonist is unable to escape her own utterly fallacious delusions as ‘hopeful' may not be directly justifiable. Yet, Ozon seems to offer the possibility that hope can take on unique forms, and that for some, living a life at the service of a delusion may be more satisfying, even beneficial, than living according to the rules of fact. Some delusions might just be therapeutic.

[WARNING: This commentary contains spoilers.]

That Mr. Greenaway's films challenge is undeniable; that they are ambitious is immediately recognizable; that each new film violently fractures audience response has become a routine. Few American critics actually even write about his work, and when they do-- and here I think randomly of Stuart Klawans' commentary on "The Cook, the Thief, his Wife and her Lover"--the comments are invariably negative, loathing the opprobrious stew of capital-A Artiness and bold and supposedly vulgar and purposeless nudity that the films are committed to.

The challenge of Greenaway's films is to avoid being overcome by his daring (and, it is vital to note, never totally straight) play with elements that tend to offend the timid: unsympathetic characters; 'pretentious' and unfamiliar references, visual style and subject matter; and unrestrained shots composed of jiggling nude bodies (particularly male ones). Greenaway is an accomplished film artist-- this must be settled for good. But he is not so 'just' because he deals with techniques uncommon to narrative film and intellectual topics that tend to flatter academics. To suggest that would be to patronize his work and to insinuate that Greenaway himself patronizes the medium. Instead, our man has high ambitions for movies and its audiences: he seeks a kind of pleasure not higher than entertainment but simply alternate to it. Experimentation with narrative film can still challenge and broaden, and there are audiences still out there that are willing to take part in films that attempt this, he would suggest. In my eyes, his work drives at trying to make us aware of the variety of 'pleasures' that film is capable of in its uniqueness as an art that compounds many arts, and as a result, Greenaway is perennially for making his audience try, for making it work for its gratification. In a Greenaway film, above all, the gratification is anything but immediate: one can never assume then that tackling his films head on or in one viewing is the best away to approach them. Particularly because from moment to moment his images are so layered and the story is so buried under those layers, taking them on head-to-head would just end with you cracking your head against the wall. His films require a delicate touch, urging one to sneak in from the side, zooming in on only a few specific aspects with each new viewing.

One aspect that does immediately strike the viewer while watching Prospero's Books-- of which we are constantly reminded and asked to ponder-- is that film spectators are listeners, as well as viewers; that we are eavesdroppers, as well as voyeurs. It privileges the word, spoken and written, and seems to be an instance of Greenaway mocking the once-defensible view that film and word are entirely incompatible, that language is 'anti-cinematic.' He accomplishes this by sprinting directly to the opposite extreme (almost trying to cleanse the film world of a burdensome prejudice with one wide sweep); in Prospero's Books images are at the service of words-- it is the words that 'make' the images.

In the film, which, incidentally, is Greenaway's adaptation of Shakespeare's The Tempest, John Gielgud plays Prospero, a wizard who transforms his words into palpable objects. Isolated on an island of nymphs and other wonderful creatures (right there, one gets a straight-on justification for the nudity, if one is searching), Prospero creates a fantastic Renaissance palace, and the world he fashions in it is shaped by the 24 books he brought along with him in his exile, which we are given the pleasure of looking over as the film's 'narrative' unfolds. I add the quotation marks to 'narrative' because the film is less 'about' events unfolding along a causal line than our partaking in a procession of the medium's simplest components: sounds and images. This makes Greenaway's choice to adapt a text from the master dramatist all the more intriguing.

I challenge any viewer to concentrate fully and solely on the film's story in the first viewing. Greenaway's art-- the rich visual composition consisting of superimposed and embedded images-- and Gielgud's-- his lucid and rare tones, totally original to the man and true to a character that possesses the power of making words visible (read Stanley Kauffmann's essay "John Gielgud: The Actor as Paragon" to get a sense of how much that voice can impact a person)-- dominate the film so completely that the story becomes marginalized. And yet, all the film's elements are complimentary: the ever-present, omnipotent voice (if God could speak, he might just sound like Gielgud) and the visuals that over-flow with compositional detail (the camera seems strained to catch it all-- at times even trying to keep up with what is unfolding before it) work in artistic harmony with the story of a man who is imprisoned on an island yet has the power to indulge himself and his passions entirely, to create his own imaginary world at the utterance of a word. Words become acts, gestures of the imagination, flooding the world with objects of which other Renaissance men can only dream-- objects lush, plentiful, colorful and sensuous. Consequently, there is no line between the inner and outer world in this film; what Prospero says, is. If there is a drama at all in the film it is that of a man who struggles with the unlimited power of his imagination and his ability to make real all that his says and thinks.

Greenaway has said somewhere (and here I can only paraphrase) that filmmakers need not devote all of the strengths of their medium to the service of refining a dramatic art-- film can and must see what it can do having left the warm blanket of 'drama' behind. It must, in other words, develop a confidence of its own, in its ability to compile and order sights and sounds. With Prospero's Books, Greenaway has found an ideal subject to that allows him to explore this.

(WARNING: This review may contain spoilers)

This is the film that will make Robert Bresson's name echo. 'Masterpiece' is a curse-word in film circles these days, as most 'scholars' occupy their time discussing politics of representation, ideology and the 'danger' of the image, yet it certainly applies to this film. A film like `Un condamne a mort' mocks the point where the study of film meets cultural studies, underscoring the simple fact that there are works that are simply worth worshipping on their own, as magnificent singularities created by a gifted individual who is more than a mere representative of this or that political end. This film is just a great work by a great man-sue me for my simplistic, wide-eyed employment of superlatives-and one that I highly recommend solely for the experience.

The film is delicate, yet intense; the stark forwardness of the narrative and its strict economy (I cannot think of one scene, of one shot, of one motion or sound that could be added or taken away without diminishment) of this careful composition bears like no other film Bresson made, like no other film by any other director, for that matter, the shaved edges of a committed carpenter. At his best, Bresson avoids the pretense and self-mockery of 'art cinema' and shines through as a prudent yet confident craftsman, an ardent 'débrouillard,' carving, sanding, and polishing his work to perfection. I have always held onto a particularly romantic (and utterly fabricated) image of him, of Bresson working quietly in his 'workshop,' using old tools, isolated, learning and honing his craft. Of course, I don't want to paint a picture that is totally false-Bresson often came to the defense of cinema (or 'cinematographie') as an art form of its own, apart from 'filmed theatre.' In a word, he was very conscious of film as art, and viewed himself primarily as an artist (not a craftsman).

The point I want to make, though, is that `Un condamne a mort' is a film that is so simple that one can see the 'brushstrokes,' as it were, the mark of the presence of the man who made it and even how he did so. Nothing is hidden by the way the film is mounted-there is nothing to suspect (most big-budget films tend to make one suspicious of how the film was made, of how it was tinkered with after the main footage was filmed to cover up 'flaws'). Bresson lays his techniques out for all to see and makes continual use of them, not shying away from repetition. He seeks not to 'wow' you with a 'great shot,' or to comfort with the familiar; he eschews conventions of suspense-building and constructs his scenes in a manner that has no use for dramatic epiphanies. In short, Bresson seeks not reaction but interaction with the viewer. I think that it is safe to say that he wants us to concentrate on what his characters are actually doing, in the 'now,' on their object of toil, rather than seek to 'identify' or 'sympathize' with what we see, or speculate for that matter on 'where this will go.' The film's title, after all, tells us what will happen-Fontaine will escape. Aware of the inevitable, the viewer is freed to experience the 'presentness' of each new image and scene, spared of the hassle of having to search for an aspect of the story to hold onto.

The most amazing aspect of this film is how Bresson is able to take material that is fundamentally political and de-politicize it by drawing our attention to the efforts, intelligent and persistent, of one individual. Fontaine, in the hands of another, would have been made to represent 'freedom' or 'liberty' or some other aspect that is usually meant (and fails) to give a film scope or grandeur or meaning or relevance. The easiest and most frequently employed way to build a character is to 'bounce' him off of other secondary characters, so that the audience can respond to the manner in which he reacts to other persons, issues or events, and so that the audience can construct an opinion of him and of what he 'signifies.' By allowing the Fontaine character to build on its own (all we see and hear, for the most part, are his plans for escape and how he executes them), Bresson does not make Fontaine represent anything except a military officer escaping from a prison. Fontaine's actions are not mythologized, and yet, they are depicted in such a (dare I say) realistic manner, that they do gain significance beyond the mere facts. This 'greater significance' is perhaps the ultimate Bresson paradox, but it is also a tribute to his unique skill.

(WARNING: This review contains spoilers)

Was Bresson a 'materialist' or a 'transcendentalist'? For those new to Bresson this might seem a reasonable question-and it still is, to a point. Like it or not, Paul Schrader's theory of transcendental style still seems to be floating about out there (despite lofty opposition in Bresson scholarship from Jonathan Rosenbaum and Kent Jones). When I first started studying Bresson, I was immediately driven to two writers: Susan Sontag and Schrader. Why? Probably due to their name-value, and I think that many before me have taken this path as well. Which is a shame. For while the labeling of Bresson's film style as `spiritual' (pace Sontag) or `transcendental' might be suitable for his earlier films, the later ones, including Le diable, probablement, which is expressly secular, 'sensuous,' atheistic and contemporary, defy the applicability of such terms.

A shot of a nude Michel getting out of a tub in Pickpocket would have seemed awkward, even disruptive, yet this is exactly the kind of scenario in which we find Le diable's protagonist, Charles. A question worth asking ourselves is how Bresson has changed as a filmmaker so that he can come to include such an image in one of his films. As one comes to realize that one is being asked to 'look at' and 'feel' the texture of Charles' flesh, one comes to the point of the film-a fascination with surfaces as surfaces, their textures and ultimately their 'penetrability.'

One must recall a key distinction between Le diable and Bresson's best known works-his 'prison cycle': Pickpocket, Un condamne a mort and Le proces de Jeanne d'Arc-and that is that the former is in color. This might seem to be a platitude to some, for color has become an integral (and overlooked) part of film language. It is telling that nowadays the use of black-and-white stock is viewed as an 'artistic statement.' For an artist as careful and rigorous as Bresson, who began making black-and-white films, the use of color was the reverse-it is not coincidental that all of his films after and including Une femme douce (save Lancelot du lac) are set in the modern city. The use of color renders the image more complex, opaque; the eye has more difficulty attaching itself to one object in particular (the 'surroundings' captured in the frame become just as interesting as the central figure(s)). It would seem, then, that as Bresson sought to depict the toils of the individual in contemporary urbanity, he also became more interested in the environment that surrounds the individual.

This preoccupation with surfaces leads, in Le diable, to an investigation of their penetrability. To what degree are surfaces-images, sounds, persons, characters-seductive? While 'surfaces' can make us feel and react, to what extent do they truly convey meaning? Charles, it would seem, is impenetrable to the tools of excavation available to moderns (that is, to the friends, professionals that surround him), and as such, he is an emblem of Bresson's explicit refusal to acquiesce to our modern preoccupation with penetrating surfaces and extracting meaning. Bresson stops us at the surface of the film and denies access to a comfortable interpretive stance. 'Who is Charles?' and 'why is he so miserable?', the other characters ask. And this is a telling point.

In Le diable, many questions are asked (about Charles and the many problems, environmental, political, that afflict the world), many theories and answers proposed. Yet none are sufficient. This is a film in which Bresson denies the importance, efficiency, and even validity of discourse. Charles is confused, and this confusion is either spawned or enhanced by trivial, quasi-academic discourse. And so, to avoid contact with discourse, Charles rushes to pleasures of the flesh to remind himself that he is still human. Since he cannot locate the source of his angst and disenchantment by way of exchanges with others, he retreats into himself, making up his own social rules as he goes and snubbing those already in place. Charles is a young contrarian without a purpose, thus his singular pursuit of Eros. The perspective the viewer has of this pursuit is external and fragmentary; one 'sees' Charles and his episodic wanderings, yet one does not participate.

To paraphrase Keith Reader, Charles is the most unsympathetic of Bresson's protagonists. His point of view is cold, illogical, unfamiliar, and unprogressive. The film presents itself as a death-march, yet the final moment seems arbitrary-it just so happens that this time he succeeds (he attempts to take his life a few times prior to the film's 'climax'). In the end, Charles is an elusive character; we are unable to figure out his complexities. As a result, the characters with whom we identify are Charles' friends, who at different points employ various methods to either dissect him, or engage him and inject purpose or passion into his existence (Edwige and Alberte are not battling themselves for his affection, they are battling Charles, who displays varying degrees of indifference to both, unlike Pickpocket's Michel, who is 'saved' by his affection for Jeanne and hers for him).

Bresson, in showing the world and its surfaces as dazzling (or at least attention-grabbing), restricts the viewer's connection to the film to the realm of the purely visual and auditory, denying ultimate access in the form of narrative engagement or understanding. Naturally, this makes the film a challenge to watch. But the experience is not unrewarding. The film is, among other things, a healthy reminder of the limits of film as a medium of communication that works toward social amelioration. One should recall that Le diable was released in the aftermath of the failed revolution(s) of the late 60s, and works very much to capture the vacuity left in the wake. Some have compared early Bresson to Pascale, in his worldview and fragmentary style. I would compare the Bresson of Le diable to Emile Cioran, who wrote in fragments that were consumed by a stinging pessimism.