Reviews

No spoiler here, but I do want to disagree with one of the former posts that claimed there was no resolution. I think there is a very definite and forceful resolution, that can be missed if one exaggerates the stiff professor seeking his lost and mysterious paramour. That pseudo-plot does resemble L'aventurra and Last Year at Marienbad, however.

I saw this film in a new 35 mm. print, along with Robbe-Grillet's 2nd film, Trans-Europe Express. Taken together, they provide very clear clues to what Robbe-Grillet is up to, how they relate to Last Year at Marienbad. what one can expect, and why Robbe-Grillet is important.

Last Year at Marienbad overwhelmed the viewer with its fascinating cinematography, set in a spacious European hotel and its extensive formal gardens. Substitute Istanbul, with its ruins, streets, and back alleys for the formal gardens, in L'immortelle, and you can sit back and enjoy the movie for its visuals alone. Trans-Europe Express seems to find anything and everything in Antwerp that is photogenic, punctuated by shots of trains, inside and out.

Highly charged eroticism is another feature of L'immortelle, with scenes of the gestures that precede f**ing, gestures that break off before the culminating copulation, which is left to the viewer's imagination. And Robbe-Gillet throws in a seemingly gratuitous scene in which the viewer joins the patrons of a night club to view a very alluring dance act. But maybe not so gratuitous; rather a signature scene, since Trans-Europe Express, also includes such a highly charged night club dance. Since L'immortelle begins with the protagonist solitarily looking out of the window, a scene that recurs several times, I interpret that as indicating that what we are seeing is from the point of view of that character. Perhaps someone can supply us with insight into how these dance scenes function as parts of the entire movie.

There is not a lot of dialog, and, what there is, frequently affirms the fakery of the entire city of Istanbul, in which the very ruins are claimed to be currently produced only for the delectation of tourists. As we view the astoundingly photogenic visual details, these are constantly being undermined by that theme. The tourist as voyeur suggests that we, too, viewing the movie, are viewers of something that is unreal.

To summarize: what one can expect in a Robbe-Grillet film, based on his first two, includes a feast of photogenic visual background, a preoccupation with erotic desire from a male point of view, and a deconstruction of what is being portrayed, a deconstruction that suggests that cinema itself is becoming aware of its own fakery.

I have recently seen the lodger in three different versions. Each had a different soundtrack.

If you have access to European PAL DVD's (you need a player that accomodates all regions and/or PAL disks), this PAL disk of The Lodger had by far the best visuals, apparently the result of a masterly reprocessing. Also, and this may turn some off, it was tinted. Finally, the soundtrack was different from either of the other two, and, in my opinion, much superior.

According to Donald Spoto, Hitchcock was under pressure to give the story a happy ending; hence the suspected murderer turns out to be one whose sister was the avenger's first victim, and he is seeking, in fulfillment of his mother's dying wish, to bring the killer to justice. A kind of deus ex machina functions, as our suspicions are summarily dispelled by a report that the killer has been captured, leading even Daisy's unrequited detective suitor to recognize the innocence of the lodger.

On the social level, the least important dimension, this is a film about the inhumanity of globalization and the possibility of some other response to the world's problems. Irene wins an award as "entrepreneur of the year," but her business career is derailed by contact with a young waif,who combines thievery and lying with a life of service to the needy. Inspired by the girl's example, Irene gradually changes her own life style in imitation.

Irene's transformation is strongly resisted by her iron-willed aunt and business associate, the villain(ess) of the film, who views her as a nut-case, introducing the theme of whether or not Irene is saintly or insane. I will not reveal how that is resolved.

Sacred Heart is a common Catholic religious symbol, referring to the Sacred Heart of Jesus as a symbol of divine love incarnate. For more than one hundred years it has been a popular devotion. There is no explicit reference in the film to this; rather, it is attributed to Irene's mother as a reference to a second heart within each of us that has to be discovered and nurtured. I might point out that this can easily be identified with the Catholic devotion; it can also be viewed as an attempt to strip the devotion of its explicit Catholic elements, to secularize it, so to speak. Other examples of ambiguity are in Irene's praying to her mother, which can be interpreted as being to her natural mother or to Mary, the Mother of God, or to both; her compassionate cradling of the pitiful Giancarlo in a pose that is modeled upon Michelangelo's Pieta; and giving away even her clothes, modeled upon the example of St. Francis. But none of these allusions are explicitly identified.

The waif's combination of thievery, lying, and self-denying service of the poor reminded me of Christ's saying, "Much has been forgiven her because she loved much." But it is her example that first inspires Irene, and Irene's example inspires the psychiatrist who treats her at the end. So we have the theme of goodness having a multiplier effect.

There is further ambiguity in the portrayal of the institutional Church. The priest is portrayed as compassionate, but troubled by doubts, being in need of consolation, which is supplied by Irene, implying that holiness trumps official office. (Nothing sexual here, this movie is about sanctity as infectious).

You may have inferred that this is a movie about women, and that is true. All the five main characters are women; the priest is important, but the psychological dynamics are between the women.

I could say more about the way golden lighting shining in darkness is employed throughout the film, the pattern of what I call "blessing music" that punctuates the plot, the use of parallel details to provide structure, etc. These reward reviewing and repondering.

This is a relatively "dark" film, symbolized by the cold weather outside throughout the film, and the various ways (wearing masks, sitting close to the fire, snuggling up) in which the characters cope with the cold.

I cannot agree with the previous review's strictures about the leading male character, that he is paternalistic, passive, and judgmental. What came across to me was that he cared deeply for his children and accepted his responsibility as a parent to address their problems. He has been abandoned by his wife and the mother of his children, he says he has done the best he could to raise them, at the same time acknowledging the need for children to have two parents. The theme of parental responsibility seems a common element in this with the last Ozu film I saw: THERE WAS A FATHER.

Although this is a rather "dark" film, the ending, like that of many of Shakespeare's plays, ends in some form of reconciliation: the one daughter wanting to start a new life, the other deciding to return, with her child, to her husband, from whom she has been separated.

Whether the father is a "good father" is questionable. We first see him abandoning a career as a schoolteacher, for which he seems eminently fitted, because he is unwilling to accept responsibility. This tendency is amplified as he separates from the son, presumably for the son's sake, but this can be interpreted as another abandonment of responsibility.

The son is portrayed as suffering deeply because of the separation, and this emotional pain is repeated in several scenes in which they are together again for short periods of time.

As the movie progresses, the son is portrayed as larger than the father, often filling the screen in interiors that have a very low ceiling. The son is always dutiful, (in contrast to the two students at the beginning of the movie); the father continually urges the son to work hard, to give it all he has, in order to get ahead. But the father appears pathetic in his subordinate clerical position; his emphasis on "giving it all one has" is countered by the son's simple desire to be with the father. Human relations trump the value of hard work.