The Exterminating Angel

The Exterminating Angel (Luis Buñuel, 1962)

The guests at an upper-class dinner party find themselves unable to leave.

Often described as the twin film to director Luis Buñuel’s own The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie, The Exterminating Angel is a surrealist exercise of style and screenwriting. Again shot by long time collaborator to Buñuel, Gabriel Figueroa, The Exterminating Angel is the story of a group of high class bourgeois that are invited at a dinner party after the opera. Strangely as the guests arrive to the mansion almost all of the domestics leave the house just like rats in a lost ship. Then with twenty seven various repetitions in the story the guests are isolating themselves in the house and have to live together in this island. Much like a play on Lord of the Flies or an essay on Jean-Jacques Rousseau’s writings, Buñuel demonstrates how decorum and ethic codes are pompous and empty when humans are piled like a horde of dogs together.

While playing on the edge of comedy, social commentary, and experimental cinema, Buñuel was a one of a kind storyteller. Even more with The Exterminating Angel than with The Discreet Charm he had to convince us of believing such a story and not make us blink with the repetitions. The first two repetitions are quite obvious with the two arrivals of the guests and the two toasts but as the story goes the subtlety of those is almost unperceptible. Just like the characters of his story, Buñuel wants to debilitate us from seeing with our conventional and conformist eye.

In this social commentary by The Exterminating Angel, there’s a clear contempt of the upper-class and its ways. Presenting them as animals or even as wolves. It is clear that Buñuel couldn’t have made such movies some those themes under the Hays code in USA. By chance, Mexican backers believed in their director and left us a great heritage of unique films of great quality.

To Kill a Mockingbird

To Kill a Mockingbird (Robert Mulligan, 1962)

In the thirties in Alabama, Atticus Finch (Gregory Peck) is a widow and a lawyer father of Scout (Mary Badham) and Jem (Phillip Alford). Saw in the eyes of the children the story is simple but beautifully told about the trial of a black man who supposedly raped and beat a young white woman. Atticus is the lawyer of the black man in this trial that will reveal to the children the racism and the evil of the world.

Hatari!

Note: this review is a translation of my original review of the movie I've seen in 2009. Since it was one of my first long reviews I've decided to translate it for everyone's benefit. I will do series of re-edits for the films that actually were reviewed in French in the first moments of this blog.

Hatari! (Howard Hawks, 1962)

With an uneasy career thorough the many Hollywoodian studios, Howard Hawks was regarded has one of the difficult directors of its time. Regaining his shine of the old days with the French New Wave"rs" as the perfect epitome of the auteur theory, the French critics of Les Cahiers du Cinéma sacred Hawks as one of the greatest American cineaste. In the latest years one of the most hip directors working today, Quentin Tarantino, places Hawks right besides Leone as his favorite directors of all-time. The Hawksian influence on Tarantino is in the dialogues and the mastery of genre films.

The story of Hatari! is quite simple, we follow a group of men who must hunt wild animals during three months in Africa for a Swiss zoo. This already adventurous setting gets more challenging when Dallas (Elsa Martinelli), the beautiful photograph from Italy, joins their group. The strong nature of each member of the group will bring the challenges and interactions within the hunters. In the opening, every male member of the team is presented in a very classical way. They represent Man mastering Nature and the Woman that is symbolized by the female rhinoceros they must capture. One of the most difficult and fighting animal of the entire order. This scene has some succulent lines like: "I think it's a female; she doesn't know where to go and seems to turn on herself." This is a Hawks trademark to mock strong women while always populating all his films with them.
On the other hand, the paternal presence of John Wayne is well felt in the team of men. He looks upon every member of the group and he plays the moderator to keep the chemistry of the little civilization they have on the camp. It might be one of Wayne's most interesting roles, plenty of funny lines and he seems to be in his element even if witnesses of the shooting said that he was so afraid of shooting the scenes in the chair at the front of the jeep.
As of all the Howard Hawks pictures there are women characters displaying strong personalities wanting to valuate themselves amongst the men. Dallas who represents Wayne's character's love interest and Betty the daughter of the ex-boss who got killed by a rhinoceros. Betty is wanted by three men and finally when she decides who's the lucky winner the resting two other men solidarity meet up and reinforce their friendship. This particular relationship is very Hawks' typical and it is almost bold subtext that both men are sharing a somewhat homosexual relationship after their rejection by Betty. It was typical of Hawks to portray great friendships by the trade of objects and friendly mockery. These observations are particular for Hawks' entire oeuvre.

François Truffaut, once analyzed Hatari! as a demonstration of Hawks' directing: a little group supervised by a father figure, the director, who must capture the right animals, images, to populate a film, a zoo, and he must used every member of the group and his strenght to succeed in their way to goodwill together.

The scenes of action involving the many animals are riveting and breath taking all shot on location in the vein of many Hollywoodian films shot in Africa at this time Hatari! is the most interesting of all. The many scenes with elephants and the light hearted comedy makes this film one of this critique's favorite adventure films of all time. A coup de coeur!

Rating:

Truffaut Double Bill: Les mistons & Antoine et Colette

Les mistons (François Truffaut, 1957)


François Truffaut’s first film, a brilliant homage to Jean Vigo’s Zéro de conduite about childhood, first and impossible love. The breezy approach, the smooth narration, the comic relief of the kids, the first moments of François Truffaut’s “mise en scène”, the sad denouement, and the bitter sweet conclusion of this short makes it a masterpiece of its own. Hugely overlooked because of the incomparable success of Les 400 coups, Truffaut’s Les mistons deserves way much praise than it actually received. Evoking his sensibility and his subtle humour, this 1957 short offers the critic’s first opportunity to make a film, the medium he is passionate about.



Antoine et Colette [segment of L’amour à vingt ans] (François Truffaut, 1962)

The first segment of L’amour à vingt ans, a film « porte-manteau » co-directed by Renzo Rossellini, Andrzej Wajda, Shinoda Imamura, and Marcel Ophüls, Antoine et Colette is a sequel to Les 400 coups (1959) and the prequel to Baisers volés (1968).

We are catching up with Antoine Doinel (Jean-Pierre Léaud), now seventeen and out of a reform school. He is working at Phillips, making records and living like an adult in his apartment. Doinel has made for himself a solitary life with one friend. Shortly, he’ll meet Colette and quickly fall in love with her. However, Colette doesn’t return his advances and she considers him as only a friend. Doinel will be almost adopted by Colette’s parents and he’ll even move in an apartment facing theirs. Their relationship is almost like if it was a family recomposed. For Doinel, this is like the parents he never had and it gives him the opportunity to spend more time with Colette.

This short will give the rhythm to the rest of the Antoine Doinel cycle. This quirky character, naive at times and childish at other moments will have to face the adult life he always wanted to live. Meanwhile, all his life he’ll be acting like a child, the Doinel of Les 400 coups that wanted to be an adult as fast as possible will always have to struggle to understand the world of adults. Antoine et Colette is the perfect link between Les 400 coups and Baisers volés. The melancholy and sadness that the Doinel films own and the bitter sweet savoury touch of the situations will be one of the trademarks of Truffaut/Léaud.

Cléo de 5 à 7

Cléo de 5 à 7 (Agnès Varda, 1962)

This post is part of the Seven days of the French New Wave event going on Le Mot du Cinephiliaque from December 1st to 7th 2011.

Agnès Varda, being one of the most famous filmmaker of the Nouvelle Vague and one of the few women to direct films in this era, is still shooting in the 2000's. Her first feature, La pointe courte might be the first film of the French New Wave. But her most widely known picture is Cléo de 5 à 7. Cléo (Corinne Marchand) is a pop singer waiting for the results of her last visit at the doctor. She might be having a cancer. We follow her struggle through the two long hours she has to wait to know the results.

This fable about the 1960's and the bland persona that the modern world and those frivolous years has brought to our society is well portrayed here. Cléo's character is very narcissic and her devotion to her beauty and her career is infectious. She'll even put on a record of one of her songs in a restaurant to watch people if they'll listen to the song playing. Her name, short for Cleopatra, says a lot about her, how she thinks she is a queen, how everyone should listen to her and be at her services. Hardly happy and never satisfied by anything, her mood swings all the time. Well, the wait of the result sure is stressing in some way but we easily guess that it's one of her trait of  personality. The presence of Corinne Marchand is the focal point of the film and Varda's camera just has to swing and follow her around to deliver her beauty and undress the character in front of our eyes. Cléo is like an onion that you have to peel to discover the diamond within when she meets Antoine the first character she seems to really apreciate.
This is a true Nouvelle Vague classic and the style of Varda and her simple technique makes this one of the little gems of this era. Since, Cléo isn't as sympathetic has she'll become near the end of the film it is harder for the audience to fully immerge himself in the story of a whinny woman. However, the princess syndrome of stardom and instant popularity couldn't be more actual. Even if it isn't really scratched by the plot some elements makes us think about anyway. A great film to get into the French New Wave. Since it was my first Varda ever I'll have to catch up and see her earlier and later work to put this one in the perspective of her whole career.

Hatari!

Hatari! (Howard Hawks, 1962)

Ayant eu un parcours difficile auprès des nombreux studios pour qui il travailla, Howard Hawks n’a pas été apprécié à sa juste valeur à son époque. Reconnu vers la fin de sa carrière par les piliers de la Nouvelle vague française comme étant l’un des plus grands cinéastes américains. Leur lecture des films de Hawks a permis à donner à sa filmographie le lustre qui lui revenait. Plus près de nous, Quentin Tarantino place Howard Hawks comme étant son cinéaste préféré avec Sergio Leone. Cette influence se ressent surtout dans l’écriture de Tarantino qui utilise des dialogues rappelant les meilleures comédies de Hawks.

L’histoire de Hatari ! est plus que simple, on y suit un groupe d’hommes qui pendant trois mois doivent chasser des bêtes sauvages en Afrique pour peupler un zoo de Suisse. C’est lorsque la photographe, Dallas (nom féminin typique des films de Hawks qui aimait donner des noms masculins à ses héroines) venue d’Italie, que les choses se corsent. Le groupe composé de plusieurs caractères différents connait plusieurs défis et frictions.
Dans un premier temps, la scène d’ouverture nous présentant chacun des membres masculins du groupe est digne des grandes scènes classiques. Ils représentent l’homme qui tente de se saisir de la nature mais aussi de l’homme qui tente d’attraper la femelle (rhinocéros) pour l’avoir comme compagne. Je cite la meilleure phrase de cette scène : Je crois que c’est une femelle ; elle ne sait pas trop où aller et elle semble tourner en rond. De l’humour très typique de Howard Hawks, car il se moque bien des femmes et de leurs sentiments changeants et il clarifie ainsi que les hommes pensent en ligne droite et voient clair dans leurs sentiments. Cependant, le personnage de John Wayne est tout à fait à l’opposé de cette idée. Il ne se rend pas compte de son béguin pour Dallas et de son attachement à elle.

Le personnage central de John Wayne est très intéressant, il fait office de pater familial. Il veille sur chaque membre de la famille et essaie de désamorcer toute discorde qui pourrait survenir lors de leur travail. Du point de vue du jeu, il est rafraichissant de voir Wayne jouer sur le côté comique. Surtout lorsqu’il répond à brûle pour point à Dallas qui lui dit ; Un jour un taureau m’a déjà couru après ! Il lui répond ; Vous êtes sûre que ce n’était pas le contraire ? À part Dallas, le seul autre personnage féminin de la bande est Betty qui est la fille de l’ancien patron de chasseurs qui a été tué par un rhinocéros lors d’une chasse. Betty est convoitée par deux hommes ouvertement et par un ami d’enfance en secret, c’est finalement ce dernier qui remportera son cœur. Suite à cela, les deux autres concurrents se lient d’une amitié presque homosexuelle dont Hawks a inconsciemment peuplé ses films.

Un jour j’ai lu que François Truffaut a analysé ce film comme une démonstration de la méthode de réalisation d’un film de Howard Hawks. Un groupe restreint supervisé par John (Hawks) doit, comme pour les nombreux animaux, tourner tous les scènes qui peuplent un film et chacun des personnages doit écouter la figure d’autorité (le réalisateur) pour que chaque animal (scène) soit dans la boîte.

Les scènes de prise d’animaux sont impressionnantes notamment avec les rhinocéros. De plus, les paysages sont magnifiques. Un bon film d’aventures qui divertit et fait réfléchir sur le travail de l’un des plus grands cinéastes américains.

Cependant, dans la filmographie de Howard Hawks bien de ses films seraient à considérer de meilleure qualité pour ne nommer que His Girl Friday, Scarface (1932), The Big Sleep, Bringing Up Baby et le chef d’œuvre Rio Bravo. Personnellement, Hatari! est mon coup de coeurs dans la filmographie de Hawks. Ce film a un je ne sais quoi qui me fait rire et passer un bon moment. Je ne sais pas si ce sont les nombreuses scènes avec des éléphants ou le sentiment de légèreté et d'innocence qui en dégage, mais j'adore ce film!