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Reviews
The Killing of America (1981)
Chilling and morbidly fascinating
Michael Moore must have seen this movie. This is Bowling for Columbine, dark and hopeless early 80s style. No humour here, just a dystopia view of an ugly, violent, dysfunctional America going down in flames, loosely connected through a sprawling narrative, and fueled by amazing archive footage.
Sensitive viewers be warned. There are plenty of ghastly sequences and photographs here. Some, no, lots of completely horrible stuff that will make you cringe.
While Moore aims at amusing us as he hammers away on his message, The Killing of America goes straight for shock value. The narrative seems to exist primarily as an excuse for showing a lot of violent images. The message never goes beyond "Look at all the violence. Something must be wrong with America". While true enough, this is hardly Pulitzer stuff.
But it is not message that makes this movie interesting. It is the fantastic collection of archive footage that the filmmakers have managed to scrape together. With the risk of appearing warped, I must admit that this is truly fascinating stuff. You'll find news footage here of riots, assassinations of political figures, sniper mass murderers etc. that is rarely shown anywhere.
I have long been fascinated by American contemporary history and politics, and in that vein, I find this movie unmissable. The three segments showing the JFK assassination from different angles alone make it worth watching. I have never really doubted that Oswald was the only assassin before, but now...let's just say I'll leave a little room for speculation. Just a tiny little bit.
Those interested in the phenomena of mass or serial killers will also get their fill of material here. A large segment of the film is dedicated to this, including court footage of Ted Bundy and an interview with Edward Kemper. Both seem earily "normal". Isn't that more scary than if they were ranting lunatics? An audio tape, seemingly real, of Jim Jones admonishing his disciples to take their own lives more willingly, without complaining so much, is another complete hairraiser.
While obviously taken out of context and thrown together in order to create a slanted image of what was going on during the 1960s and 1970s, many of the scenes in this movie rightly show us a different America than the one we recognize from mainstream media.
This is not the whole truth. But it is a small part, an evil, shadowy part. The Killing of America desensitizes recent history. And as such, it is essential.
Conte d'été (1996)
Brilliantly acted and executed slice-of-life
A lovely little summer's love story. One guy, three girls, a stunning French coastal setting. He is in love, of course. With one of them? Two? All three? Himself?
It might not sound like much, but this movie is perfectly balanced. The illusion is flawless, with direction, photo, sound, everything so gentle that nothing intrudes on your enjoyment. And the actors are perfectly natural with the material. Excellent dialogue.
I especially like how fluid the presentation of Gaspard is. It keeps changing throughout the movie. We think we know who he is, what kind of person he is, and then we realize he's something else, different.
Also, the ending, great.
Overall, a beautiful little gem that also manages to pose a barrage of questions about love, without ever telling the audience what to think.
I need to watch more Rohmer movies.
Kill Bill: Vol. 1 (2003)
In one word, awful
I caught Mr. Tarantino's latest piece at the Stockholm Film Festival and I was greatly disappointed, to put it mildly. This film is a piece of sh*t. There's just no two ways about it. It stinks.
The characters are flatter than racoons on a highway, and the depth and development of the story is put to shame by most Italian operas. There is no trace of the intricate story building of Pulp Fiction, nor of the empathy for the characters sometimes found in Jackie Brown.
All we get here is an endless orgy of über-cool nasty people in designer clothing cutting off feet on highly stylized stage sets, with fountaineous gushes of blood the high-point of the fun.
The action scenes are tired, bleak copies only. They have already been done better in countless asian genre movies. Uma Thurman fights a large number of black-suited opponents at the same time? Well, wasn't that already done in Matrix II? It's not really funny the second time around, is it?
There is no longer any originality in Tarantino's work. Everything is borrowed, everything is an hommage to something or other. But with no focus of its own, no vision to guide it along, the movie just disintegrates into a hodge-podge of stolen scenes and stolen ideas. Kill Bill just doesn't have a "soul". It is empty, void, a pointless excursion into excessive, stupid violence.
With this movie, Tarantino has finally proven his critics right. Now, he really is just another panderer of speculative ultra violence.
Independence Day (1983)
Well worth it if you are in a sentimental mood.
This, I suppose, largely forgotten movie just aired on Swedish late-night television. I don't expect many people saw it. I only happened upon it myself. But it managed to catch my interest.
It is a small, unassuming movie. Nothing remarkable, but well-acted and warm at heart. It paints a believable picture of small-town life, not just in America, but in most of the Western world. As I watched it I realized that it could very easily be adapted to Swedish conditions. You would really only need to change the names, and let it take place in the cold north of Sweden, with Stockholm the glowing city in the sun. The same longing for something more, and the same fear of the unknown exists right here. I guess it's universal.
Anyway, the movie is well worth watching. It is far better than its recent over-hyped and under-acted namesake.