RogerKapur Reviews

Jules and Jim (1962)

Beautiful, poetic and enigmatic work mirrors its female protagonist

[25 April 1999]

François Truffaut's enigmatic romance was made at the beginning of the swinging sixties and tells the story of a triangular love affair between a Frenchwoman, Catherine (Jeanne Moreau), a Frenchman, Jim (Henri Serre) and an Austrian, Jules (Oskar Werner). The film seemed to capture the radical spirit of the times in which it was made although the story takes place in pre- and post-World War I France and Austria.

It tells the tale of how three friends try to live lives unshackled by convention in France before the outbreak of World War I. The Bohemians, Jim and Jules are inseparable companions and when they both fall for the same girl (they compare her to a Greek statue), the vivacious but enigmatic Catherine, their friendship, remarkably seems to be unaffected. An idyllic period comes to an end when Catherine agrees to marry Jules on the eve of World War I (Jules is helped by Jim's act of gallantly standing aside when Jules asks that the two men "not share everything"). After the war, when the two men fight on opposing sides (each dreading the prospect of meeting the other in combat) Jim is invited to visit the couple in their home in Austria and is surprised by Catherine's invitation for him to resume their amorous liaison. Jules apparently consents but we begin to realize that Catherine is frustrated in her marriage with Jules and has already wreaked sexual "revenge" on Jules on previous occasions. Jim feels confused when she appears to return to Jules's bed and thinks that Catherine may be using him. He returns to France. After some time Jules suggests that Catherine divorce him and marry Jim - reasoning that this will be the only way in which he will be able to remain near her - but Catherine becomes jealous when she learns of Jim's mistress. One day Jim is persuaded by Jules to come to the couple's house, in France, where Catherine insists on driving both of them to a surprise destination.....

The film was technically very innovative employing many of the techniques associated with the French New Wave, including mobile cameras, quick cutting, overlapping scenes, slow motion and freeze frames, yet they are so skillfully used that we almost never become consciously aware of them. It is also remarkable in portraying the happiness of friendship and the excitement of young love while also perceiving the self-deception of the protagonists. François Truffaut directed the film using an adapted script that he had co-written with Jean Gruault from a novel by Henri-Pierre Roche. The film also benefitted greatly from the beautiful melodic score by Georges Delerue and the interpretation of Jeanne Moreau, who probably gave the finest performance of her career in this film.

It has been said Truffaut, a notorious womanizer in real-life who made many films attacking conventional morality, made the film as a defense of monogamous relationships. The film's vision seems too pessimistic to admit this. I believe that the tempestuous and apparently fickle Catherine, in reality, wanted a surprisingly conventional marriage and for this reason she married Jules, apparently the more conservative of the two friends. When Jules could not be the masculine protector that she wanted, she attempted to change him through her constant sexual "revenges". Far from enjoying this, I think she was humiliating herself as the only way she knew to provoke the implacable and calm Jules to become jealous and protective. When all of her attempts failed she entered into despair.

Thus, Catherine is driven to her act of self-destruction, taking Jim with her. In a sense, Jim represented all of the lovers with whom she had humiliated herself to try to change her man. The film thus contrasts the fundamental incompatibilities and lack of communication that seem to plague conventional relationships with the enduring qualities of friendship. Although Truffaut directs with verve and feeling he seems to have created a beautiful and poetic work, as enigmatic as its amoral female protagonist, Catherine.

Who Killed Pixote? (1996)

Brilliantly made moral of social factors behind crime in the third world

[23 April 1999]

This film won the prize for best Latin American film (shared jointly with "Guantanamera") in the Gramado Film Festival in 1996. It deals with the events leading up to the death of the real- life Fernando Ramos da Silva, the child actor who represented a small-time child criminal who grew up in the slums of São Paulo, Brazil.

The original film told the story of how Fernando ("Pixote" = little kid) after getting in trouble with the police is sent to FEBEM (children's reformatory) as Brazilian law prohibits children from going to prison. The original film (which won many international awards) shocked Brazilian society by showing how FEBEM, far from being the kind and reforming institution that it was meant to be, was actually a vicious training ground for criminals, run with an iron hand by cruel and unscrupulous guards. As well as an impassioned indictment of FEBEM the film examined the social conditions which lead to crime. To reinforce its message, it used a real-life slum-dweller to play the central character and ended without any climax, suggesting that the outcome of its protagonist would be decided by all of us i.e Brazilian society.

José Joffily, director of Quem Matou Pixote, continues the story, which reflects the theme of life imitating art, by showing how the adolescent Fernando, no longer a slum-dweller but poor and semi-literate, is drawn to a life of crime by a lack of opportunities. This might initially appear to be a somewhat predictable story but it is lifted well above the average by several factors.

One is the way that Joffily develops the implications of the social and economic factors in modern Brazil which produce criminals i.e. devastating urban poverty, police corruption, violent methods of police "investigation" which use remnants from the days of military dictatorship, including torture and summary execution. He also shows society's apparent indifference over Fernando's fate. Fernando, for example, has to beg Hector Babenco, the director of the original film in which he starred, to get him a part in a Brazilian TV soap. The rest of the cast belittle and distrust him. His tears when he hears their condescending words are very poignant. The director of the TV show is furious over Fernando's inability to remember lines but assumes that the young man is simply an idiot. When Babenco realizes that the problem lies in Fernando's poor ability to read he reacts in a resigned manner as if to say "what can anybody do for you". Fernando has been abandoned by everyone.

Another is the way in which Fernando is portrayed as a vacillating, almost Hamlet-like character, unable to decide between making an effort to pursue a career as an actor or a criminal. He makes half-hearted efforts to be honest (despite the increasing severe threats being made by the police) but continually lapses into petty crime to pay for his few pleasures in life (his motorcycle, marijuana). In the end he is redeemed by the love of his wife but it is too late.

Finally, the film owes much of its power to the extraordinary interpretations provided by its two leads Cassiano Carneiro and Luciana Rigueira representing Fernando and Cida, respectively. Cassiano manages to make Fernando both the smooth but likeable rogue who courts Cida and the pitiful failure who vividly describes police torture to his girlfriend and who begs for comprehension as an aspiring artist from the very policeman who declare "ham actor" after shooting him dead in a set-up (they intend to allege that they killed him in self-defense). Rigueira's performance is no less impressive. She is evolves from the charming and simple girl who marries Fernando and the wife and mother who tries to exert a moral influence over him to the grieving widow who saw Fernando neither as criminal or actor but as husband and father.

To criticize the film's only weak point, rather flat photography and visuals seems superfluous for a film with a memorable story and characters whose moral is made brilliantly.

The Thin Red Line (1998)

The most influential film of the 1990s

[2 March 1999]

The "Thin Red Line" is not an easy film to understand. It uses one of the most complex narrative structures yet produced by cinema to tell three stories (yes, it DOES have a plot): 1) the one the book wanted to tell (the book's title comes from a 19th century allusion to the British Empire's infantry whose small numbers managed to 'protect' the British ["civilization" from their point of view] from the countless hordes of "savages" which the Empire ruled (this concept is regrettably racist). James Jones used this analogy to tell the story of how young American soldiers with no battlefield experience become bloodied veterans. 2) the fundamental paradox of war: to protect "civilization" (all that we hold dear) we are prepared to send young men to fight in wars. We know that in war they will see and do things that will turn them into the very "savages" that we are trying to prevent from destroying our civilization. If you believe that there are things even worse in the world than war (genocide, rule by the Axis powers) then war is not irrational, but the paradox mentioned above exists. 3) man is not distinct from nature but a part of it. Therefore, nature is both beautiful and cruel. (Like our civilization and war). To tell these stories Terence Malick used symbolic imagery, flashback, voice-overs, passages without dialogue, long close-ups of the actors' faces, changes in tempo and a haunting score. For example, his use of symbolism has been much criticized but everything has a purpose e.g. the crocodile entering the green algae covered water (nature's savagery), the native man who passes the company, after they land on the beach, walking in the opposite direction apparently oblivious of their presence (their shocked and bewildered faces reveal how they are forced to question the relevance of the reasons for which they may shortly die - the defense of civilization), the tree being choked by parasitic vines ('nature is cruel' as Lt. Col. Tall so aptly puts it), the bird being born as a soldier dies (it was not dying as many people thought - "we come from the earth and return to it" as we hear in the voice-overs), dogs eating a human corpse ("dog eat dog" - the soldiers are becoming desensitized to the violence) the same crocodile, now dead, at the end of the film being carried away as a sort of trophy (danger has receded for the moment), the coconut sprouting a palm on the empty beach in the last scene (after death comes birth - the cycle of life). There are, of course, many, many other examples. The use of flashback accompanied by voice-over to convey feelings as opposed to narrate a story must have appeared strange to anyone who never saw Alain Resnais' "Hiroshima Mon Amour". It was used most effectively with Ben Chaplin's character (Pvt. Jack Bell) when he thinks of his wife back home - incidentally he idolizes her in the same way we do our own culture - another metaphor. His disillusionment is profound and shows that what he was prepared to die for was only as pure as any ideal. It is often say that there was no character development. This is also false. For example, in the scene where Sgt. Welsh is speaking to Witt shortly after his arrest for being AWOL , Welsh seems to claim that it is every man for himself when he says that individual sacrifice is worthless, there is no world but this one and that each man must get through the war the best that he can. However, we subsequently see him risking his life to deliver morphine to a MORTALLY wounded man during the frontal assault on the Japanese machine gun nests. Also, Witt can not understand where evil comes from in the midst of the beauty he sees in the Melanesian village, but when he returns there he sees man arguing, enemy skulls, crabs hideously crawling around on an outstretched human hand and a child's back covered with insect bites while those people around it are seemingly uncaring. These images suggest that evil is inherent in man. Malick avoids the usual stereotypes. Although we see heroic acts (such as the taking of the machine gun nests by Capt. John Gaff's [John Cusack] team of volunteers), there are no recognizable heros. It is true that the characters are not sharply defined. When the violence comes it is against all of them i.e. all of US. Are there then any relevant negative criticisms of the movie? I would say that it did not meander as some critics alleged (every scene has a purpose) but it was unnecessarily long. There is a certain irony in this. It is said that Malick edited over 100 hours of material first to 9 hours. Understandably the studio did not accept this. He then reduced it to 6 hours and then to 3. (This helps to explain the lightning appearances by John Travolta and George Clooney, I see no problem, however, with using big name stars in such short roles - Richard Attenborough did it in "A Bridge Too Far"). With so much cherished material available, I suspect that Malick fell into the trap of opting for the maximum length that the studio would allow when more artistically efficient editing would have reduced the film to 2* hours. The balance between the action and meditative passages would have worked better if certain scenes had been cut, such as Witt's passing a wounded soldier on the way back to his company after leaving the Melanesian village the second time and also the conversation that Witt and Welsh have towards the end of the film (Welsh appears a stranger to him, suggesting that he is simply a troublemaker). Even with the exclusion of these scenes Witt would still appear a humanist and Welsh a complex "every man". Most people would agree that the film is visually stunning. As there has been very little even remotely similar in the past, it will be confusing for many people but I am convinced that this will come to be seen as a hugely important work - the most influential of the 1990s.

Deliverance (1972)

Action adventure film with apocalyptic sub-message

[2 March 1999]

Deliverance is a deceptively simple film. It can be enjoyed as a simple action adventure with four city dwellers battling for their lives when their weekend trip to the country goes very, very wrong.

I suspect, however, that director Boorman was trying to tell us that we live in a jungle and man's inherent nature is evil.

The four go on a canoeing trip and it is obvious that their only concerns are about natural perils but we see that the real danger comes both from themselves and other humans.

Boorman makes stunning use of symbolic imagery when an extremely ugly hillbilly child plays with Cox in the two banjos sequence. Despite the beauty of the music we sense foreboding in what is to come.

The crucial scene comes after Burt Reynolds kills one of the hillbillies to defend his colleagues from homosexual assault. The four debate whether to go to the authorities or cover up the killing. We see a courtroom-like atmosphere develop where what seems to be on trial is the nature of mankind itself. The personalities of each of the group are thrown into sharp contrast: Ronny Cox is the humanist - he argues that the group should turn itself in and claim self-defense, firm in the belief that by doing the 'right thing' they will be treated fairly. Ned Beatty's character has tried throughout the film to prove his masculinity - his only concern is that no one should ever know of this episode (which could call his sexuality into question). Jon Voight is the vacillator - he will go with the majority or the strongest voice. He is therefore convinced by the character of Burt Reynolds. Reynolds is the strong silent type with no illusions about what to expect from a jury composed of the relatives of the dead man.

In contrast to all the others Reynolds appears completely relaxed and is in his element. In reality, he has waited all his life for this moment. The seriousness with which he has taken this trip and the fact that he learned how to shoot with bow and arrow are no accident. Even before the killing, one never had the impression that the trip was just fun for him. One almost has the feeling that he is a closet survivalist. He has the self-confidence of a jungle native on his own turf and knows at every step from then on in the film what to expect and what to do.

Predictably, there is a need for more killing before the survivors can escape. Voight is the hapless 'coward' put in the role of enduring severe physical and emotional ordeals to save the group and himself.

When finally, all seems to be over we can not fail to ignore the irony of the 'advice' given by the sheriff (interestingly it appears that this was played by the author of the book and scriptwriter of the film James Dickey): "don't ever do anything like this again" = I know what you did but I can not prove it. You will not have the same luck if you try again.

The group understand exactly what he means. They have learned all they want to about themselves and human nature in general.

Rashomon (1950)

Search for the meaning of truth

[10/10 · 26 February 1999]

Rashomon deals with a concept embodied in Japanese culture - the subjectiveness of truth - and presents it in a way that is intelligible to western audiences.

The film is rich and multi-layered in its use of montage, mise-en-scène, the play of light and shadows in its forest sequences - Kurosawa always admitted that Jean Renoir had been one of his earliest influences. The make-up is skillful, especially in the sequence where the wife is "possessed" by her dead husband's spirit. The theatrical opposition of the players contributes to an other-worldly ambiance and the movie has a haunting score. These factors give it a texture which is intriguing and almost dream-like.

The characters are supremely well-performed, especially by the always-impressive Toshiro Mifune (playing the bandit) and also by Machiko Kyo (playing the nobleman's wife). It is said that before shooting began each day Kurosawa showed Mifune a short film of a wild lion in the jungle and asked the actor to imitate the creature - after seeing the agitated, nervous and mannerism-ridden bandit he represents I can believe it. Kyo was apparently a relative newcomer to film-making and if so this was a very impressive debut as the in-turns faithful, treacherous, child-like and manipulative wife.

Of course, the film attracts its interest chiefly from the story itself - four people tell differing versions of a murder and rape, with three of them individually taking responsibility for the murder - endless analyses have been made to explain it or pronounce it unexplainable but most people agree that it deals with the subjectiveness of the concept of truth. What we regard as true seems to always be heavily influenced by our own standpoint.

Although re-filmed by Hollywood as the Outrage (1964) and obviously inspiring more recent films (Courage Under Fire, Snake Eyes) the original is unsurpassable in visual splendor, the vividness of the characters and its enigmatic plot.