Come and See

Come and See aka Idi i smotri (Elem Klimov, 1985)

After finding an old rifle, a young boy joins the Soviet Army and experiences the horrors of World War II.

Often described as the most realistic War film ever made, Elem Klimov’s final film, Come and See is a tour de force of acting, cinematography, and human extremism exposition. This engaging film of beauty and ugliness of a teenage boy who lives through World War II in Belorussia and who is taken to fight along the Russians against the Nazi occupation and its extermination of those who are called the White Russians.

Midway into this nightmarish vision of one of the worst aspects of humanity in the 20th Century, War and the extermination of nations, I felt like if I was watching the ultimate horror movie. Knowing that this kind of story never ends well I tried not to get too attached to the characters but from the first moments I was hooked with the kids playing on the beach looking to play war during War. As young boys we imagined playing war was fun and wanted to shoot and live those action movie moments. However, Florian (A. Kravchenko) gets way more than he asked for. Not long after he finds an old rifle he is taken from his mother and two young sisters to fight with the Red Army. Just as he is we are the silent witness of the worst humans can do. What frightens the most with Come and See is how it is probably not exaggerated how the horrors and the cruelty is done.

Often, the main critic about War films is that it depicts an exciting vision of killing enemies and action movie of good and bad guys. By far, Come and See is the most efficient anti-War film ever made. I’ve read somewhere that compared to it Apocalypse Now is the ultimate date movie, well Apocalypse Now and Full Metal Jacket are rewatchable movies and have an entertainment value that can distance us from the horrible aspects and are mostly artistic visions of War from their directors. With Klimov’s film there’s a high cinematic value and he probably used some of the most manipulative and involving techniques to makes us feel the disgust of War but no one can stay passive with this film.

As much as the qualities of Come and See are obvious as it is depicting one of the worst nightmarish visions, we feel that the manipulation and the strings of sensationalism are a bit overwhelming. Some scenes are almost unwatchable and no one is spared. Just as the conclusion of the film evokes, History can’t be erased or reversed and sadly monsters like the Nazis have lived before and nothing can be done to correct that. It is a bit pedestrian or blockbuster label but Come and See fells into the mandatory film category and not for the faint of heart too. It reminds us of the U.N.’s statement after the Second World War of never again we must let this happen.

The Goonies

The Goonies (Richard Donner, 1985)

A band of young boys find a treasure map and embark on a magical adventure.

Strong from the succes of E.T. : the Extra-Terrestrial, Steven Spielberg who is credited as executive producer and for the story of The Goonies, went on to produce Gremlins, Poltergeist and Back to the Future. Family movies that each had different levels of success. As The Goonies director, Richard Donner (original Superman franchise) was nice fit for the children play of no harm and full adventure. In fact, The Goonies is more like a play on Raiders of the Lost Ark for children without the edge that the Harrison Ford vehicule would carry.

It is also a case of film that targets a certain age and may speak to them. The targeted audience in this case is young preteen boys. Or if I want to be a bad mouth, the mental age of some of the comic book guy you would find in a comic book store. And by that, I think of an enthusiast Steven Spielberg’s towards this second class entertainment.

Second class, indeed, because everything is fake, the sets, the blue water, the acting, the blend of « cool » characters and annoying brats, the Asian Inspector Gadget and the over the top bold bad guys. The exterior scenes are those who have the best potential and give a break to the rest of the production. We are thousands of miles away from Raiders of the Lost Ark and still it feels like The Goonies wants so bad to be as good. However, it is too thin as a story and too impossible. As a kid, I know, I would have bored to death by this. Spielberg’s work as a producer has never been as interesting as his work as a director. Except for Back to the Future.

By saying all this I know I would hurt many people who vow a cult to this and I’m not casting my contempt on them, well a little. But, I can understand how a childhood memory can be hard to get criticized. Let’s call a cow a cow.

To me, The Goonies is a product made to appeal to kids and especially little boys who like to be taken into fantastic stories. Lately, I’ve watched The Princess Bride and reviewed it quite favorably but with a certain hold. With The Goonies I’m sure it is clear that I didn’t liked the film and felt it was too long, annoying, and took children for simple minded individuals. And I really hate when I feel a movie or the moviemakers take me for an idiot.

 

Shoah

Shoah (Claude Lanzmann, 1985)

This 1985 French documentary about the Holocaust has a tremendous lenght of more than nine hours long. Spanned on many years, its director Claude Lanzmann interviewed refugees, people of Poland, ex-Nazis, Jews, and many notable actors of the worst extermination of humans of the 20th Century. 

Re-Animator

Re-Animator (Stuart Gordon, 1985)

Gory as hell and funny as it could be, Stuart Gordon’s Re-Animator is a horror film lover’s wet dream. With enough classic elements of Sci-fi and Horror with the genius turned mad scientist in Herbert West (Jeffrey Combs) openly based on H.P. Lovecraft’s Herbert West, Re-Animator story and a distant homage to Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein, Re-Animator didn’t become a cult classic for the quality of its acting. Maybe. But it’s the outstanding use of gore and blood that at first gets in your face. Then it’s the cartoonesque story of the two young students Dan Cain (Bruce Abbott) and West (Combs) playing with life re-animating every corpse that gets in their way and the always in the wrong place Megan Halsey (Barbara Crampton) that is the tender half of Dan. 

The Purple Rose of Cairo

The Purple Rose of Cairo (Woody Allen, 1985)

Another film in the golden years of Woody Allen’s monstrous career, The Purple Rose of Cairo stars Mia Farrow, Allen’s life partner at the time, and Jeff Daniels. In the Depression era a little frail woman named Cecilia (Mia Farrow) tries to make a living by waitressing while daydreaming of pictures, actors, and fictional stories. Her husband (Danny Aiello), a rude employed child-like man gives her every reason to want to escape her life with movies.

Made two years after his faux-documentary Zelig set in the same time period, the Great Depression, Woody Allen exploits the film in the film or the concept of the ouroboros. The simple act of going to the movies is reduced to its initial purpose here: to have a good time, dream, live or escape to another life. The moments where Cecilia sits in the theatre eating popcorn and delivering herself from her meaningless job and rough husband are pure cinematic bliss. We easily identify ourselves sitting in this almost empty theatre and watching Tom Baxter (Jeff Daniels) in the movie showed actually also titled The Purple Rose of Cairo. At first, when the character of Baxter gets out of the screen and flirt with Cecilia when might think that it is surrealist, and be a direct reference to Buster Keaton’s masterpiece Sherlock Jr. But, Baxter actually gets involved with the characters of Cecilia’s reality, with her husband, Hollywood actor Gil Shepherd (also Jeff Daniels), and the girls of a brothel. However, every scene involving Baxter seemed so caricatured that it is definitely an expansion of Cecilia’s phantasm of evasion and letting everything behind and realizing her dreams of Hollywood scale.

For those who care for that there will be spoilers in the next paragraph. In the final moments of the film there are many true Woody Allen signatures. First, when Shepherd convinces Cecilia to let Baxter go back in the movie and follow him to Hollywood we have a clear shot of Shepherd in the plane alone thinking of what he has done to save his career and hurting Cecilia in his measure. This is one of Woody Allen critic over Hollywood in his disdain for this city and how it all works. It also represents the structure of story he usually makes with the complete turnover until the final ending where almost everything is back in its place like it was when the film began. Allen likes his scripts to be like a two way ticket. Well, here you have these people they live an adventure and then they go back to their normal lives. Just like the audience that lived the movie and then go back home with the memories of Cairo, adventurers, etc.

With The Purple Rose of Cairo, Allen manages to blend one of his most well mastered mixture of romantic comedy and drama. Once again, this is one of Allen’s great genuine pictures, he is not trying to be Ingmar Bergman or Federico Fellini here, he does a Woody Allen picture that works and that deserves its place within the 1000 Greatest Films of All Time by They Shoot Pictures. It is also worth to mention the excellent work of cinematographer Gordon Willis, a long- time Allen collaborator. A touching film that reflects the love of movie from a movie lover to movie lovers.

Elvis Gratton: Le king des kings

Elvis Gratton: Le king des kings (Pierre Falardeau & Julien Poulin, 1985)
This compilation of many short films directed by Pierre Falardeau and Julien Poulin sure made its way into the cultural references of every Québécois out there. You can't say "Yeah!" like Elvis Presley without having the people around you doing it in chorus afterward "à la" Gratton. For those who will watch this today will find it extremely outdated. Well it was even at the time it came out. Don't get me wrong here, it was made on purpose to look like a white thrash/redneck low-life joke. The title role, Robert "Elvis" Gratton (Julien Poulin) is a caricature of the middle to low-class Québécois of the time. On one side it is made as an ironic comedy whilst it strongly denounciates the bold irritations of its creators.
It is worth noticing that Poulin and Falardeau were notable nationalist or as we call them in Québec separatist who think that the nation of the province should have its own country and Independence. As I already stated before I won't analyze politics or either defend ideologies. However, I am exposing the creators' values and visions of their world at the time. The story is a series of sketches put together without any real narrative structure except the recurrent characters. Made prior to the release of the feature film the three sketches were shot between 1981 and 1985. The story is centered on the racist, vulgar swearer that Gratton represents. It is not a kind representation of the middle-class citizen and it involves a lot of contempt and maybe a little bit of self-derision to the audience to fully appreciate him in its whole.
Following Elvis Gratton, Falardeau made many political films some hits and some misses. We will be reviewing the better of his offerings eventually on this blog. They include Octobre (not an Eisenstein remake), Le party, and 15 février 1839. The popular phenomenon of Elvis Gratton may have become bigger than it really deserves to be but it is still a comedy institution in Québec's cinematic landscape.

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Back to the Future

Back to the Future (Robert Zemeckis, 1985)

Being born in the 1980's, 1983 to be exact, Marty McFly (Michael J. Fox) has always been one of my favourite childhood heroes. He rode a skateboard, been in the past and drove a DeLorean. The simple thought of time travel always inspired weird ideas of returning to Prehistoric Ages or Medieval Times. However, this Robert Zemeckis pictures targets the 1950's a time of "peace and security" for the middle class American. This era has been romanticized and brought back in fashion in the 1980's. It was then a nice opportunity to take the Marty McFly of 1985 and make him travel to the time where his parents met: the 1955. Well, in a strictly commercial point of view this family adventure targeted many generations and portrayed an era that represented the parents of the time and the teenagers.

It is in the same vein that John Hugues managed with much success to make many teenager films, by understanding their preoccupations and revitalizing the social values of the 1950's. His comedies, Christmas Vacation (written by Hugues and directed by Jeremiah Chechiak), for example, display a father figure that wants to revive the real Christmas family of his childhood, from what decade? The 1950's, yeah right!

The story of the family depicted in Back to the Future represents the perfect recipe to a success, the love story, the action, the stereotypes of the crazy scientist, the terrorists, etc. It was intended to be a classic at the time it was made. Nowadays, it is a cult classic for my generation and a personal nostalgic pleasure. I remember watching this movie with my father on Saturday nights everytime it was aired on TV. Sometimes we would rent the three films together and watch them in a triple bill evening with popcorn, cheese sticks and cola. As a part of the 1001 Movies You Must See Before You Die Blog Club I was thrilled to revisit this classic of my childhood. A must see.