Veronika Voss

Veronika Voss (Rainer Werner Fassbinder, 1982)

Munich, 1955: A sports journalist meets Veronika Voss (Rosel Zech), an UFA actress who supposedly had an affair with Goebbels. Now declining, Voss is kept by her "kind" doctor, Dr. Katz, supplying her house, food, clean clothes and her favourite: morphine. Voss, trying to come back towards the cinema, cannot perform an absurdly simple scene, but it attracts the attention of the journalist, who suspects that something's very wrong regarding her doctor.

A Midsummer Night’s Sex Comedy

A Midsummer Night’s Sex Comedy (Woody Allen, 1982)

A wacky inventor and his wife invite two other couples for a weekend party at a romantic summer house in the 1900s countryside.

With a series of masterpieces like Annie Hall, Manhattan, and Stardust Memories in the late 1970’s and early 1980’s, actor-director Woody Allen would go on and fell into a more serious state of mind in the themes and stories of his films. With A Midsummer Night’s Sex Comedy he went back on the more comedic side of his craft. Obviously inspired by Ingmar Bergman’s Smiles of A Summer Night, the great Swede’s unique comedic success, Allen’s film doesn’t deliver at the level of his aforementioned films or of his inspiration.

Staring himself, Mia Farrow, Mary Steenburgen, José Ferrer, Julie Hagerty and Tony Roberts A Midsummer tells the story of ancient lovers, new love and missed opportunities. Well, some of Allen’s regular themes. Brilliantly shot by legendary cinematographer Gordon Willis we have in place many elements that could have made it a great movie but instead it fells flat and redundant at times. Allen seems to be forcing to get comedic elements into his already comic plot to justify the fact that he has the actual word comedy in the title of the film. However, with his aforementioned successes, he proved he can make intelligent comedy without the physical comedy of his earlier films. The line between romance, comedy, and drama is weirdly crossed in A Midsummer and it makes many awkward scenes and as the viewer I felt distant to those characters. Maybe the countryside is not favorable for Allen and he is more inspired by the city and urban settings.

As a genuine enthusiast of the films of the Woodman, it was the only directorial credit that I needed to watch from his prolific 1980’s decade of great films. My expectations were moderate but I was hoping to get a little gem but not a masterpiece. It is an average to good film but it never really gets on track and works for me. It is a difficult film to rate because its execution with the cinematography is faultless it is more on the content that it stumbles and drags. Although, later in his career, Woody Allen will direct a bunch of worst films that could help make this one feel like a nostalgic piece of the greatest era of his work.

Koyaanisqatsi

Koyaanisqatsi (Godfrey Reggio, 1982)

Life out of balance is the translation proposed by the film from the title of the first chapter of the Qatsi trilogy.The shooting of the images began in 1975 and from time to time and with the new funding from IRE, director Godfrey Reggio and cinematographer Ron Fricke assembled a ton load of film shot all around USA. This poetic visual documentary has only images and the mystical music by composer Philip Glass. The narrative is however very clear and the music juxtaposed to slow motion and time-lapsed (fast forward) photography makes a great deal of the wonders of nature, progress, and the mess made by mankind.

The Verdict

The Verdict (Sidney Lumet, 1982)

A lawyer sees the chance to salvage his career and self-respect by taking a medical malpractice case to trial rather than settling.

About ten years ago, or so, I saw Dog Day Afternoon Sidney Lumet’s near masterpiece that stars a young and once brilliant Al Pacino. As a director, Lumet is very talented and subtle. In my book of directors he is one of the most constant and underrated moviemaker of the American Cinema. Teaming with very talented screenwriter David Mamet and lead man Paul Newman, Lumet’s offers us with The Verdict more than just a simple courtroom drama. 

Fitzcarraldo

Fitzcarraldo (Werner Herzog, 1982)

There is a popular admiration towards Fitzcarraldo in the world of film buffs, the film itself and the making of the film is almost unbelievable. Let's get to it already, the major aspect of the story and the real challenge for Herzog and his crew was to shoot in the Amazonian jungle for the second time, first time was in 1971 for Aguirre the Wrath of God, and to take a steamboat and to pull it over a mountain with indigenous and only human strength and will. Add to that the maniacal persona of Klaus Kinski one of the most gifted actor of all-time that only his own insanity was his worst self destructive enemy. Wait, there's more, let's say that Werner Herzog made some of the most epic films of their time and their director-actor relationship was one of the most intense and challenging. They almost killed each other and each had a bad temper and their clashes were insane. In a documentary Herzog directed later about Kinski he admitted that the natives offered to murder Kinski because of his hot-temper.

Fanny and Alexander

Fanny and Alexander (Ingmar Bergman, 1982)
When Bergman announced this film he also said to whoever wanted to hear that it was gonna be his final directing job. History told us that he made some movies after this 1982 picture. However, Fanny and Alexander seems like the perfect testament from one of the greatest, if not the greatest filmmaker of all time. The rich colours, the wonderful mise en scène and the panoramic framing of every scene is just perfect. Plus, it begins with a warm celebration of christmas in Sweden of the early 20th Century.

A family that looks like a lot like Bergman's description of his, an actor father that dies too young. His mother getting married with a strict pastor who hates children, and the use of every trick in the bag of Bergman. Well, this is Bergman's autobiographical picture where Alexander portrays the little Ingmar in his childhood when he discovered the theater and the first cinema-lanterns. One of the most famous stills from this film is the Alexander picture watching his little theater in the night of Christmas.

The plot is an amalgam of Bergman's childhood memories but also his influences in films with subtle references to Hamlet, which is the play his family rehearse and one time his mother calls him Hamlet when he can't stand his stepfather. The many spectral apparitions and the construction of the story reminds the great plays of Strindberg, one of Bergman's favourite playwriter. The film has this classic approach to drama and narrative while being a fresh Bergman film, original and unique.

However, the most interesting aspect of this film is the warmth of the images and the atmosphere of joy and reverence from the entire cast. When you look at the Making Of from the wonderful Criterion set, there is a sense of happiness, joy from the shooting of the film and Bergman seems relieved to shot this film and tie the bow with this magnificent opus. He looks content at what he has done and the final film seems to make him proud of what he did not only as a director but as an artist.

As a Bergman enthusiast and a true lover of Christmas and the Holidays I think that the whole sequence depicting the night of Christmas, the meal, the music, the dancing, and the family fun that it represents reminded me of the memories of what this celebration used to be in my childhood. Like the celebration of Christmas depicted in the Claude Jutra film Mon oncle Antoine that represents how we celebrate Noël in my part of the world. Fanny and Alexander has been since the first time I saw it one of my Holiday favorite. A must see and a masterpiece.

Poltergeist (1982)

Poltergeist (Tobe Hooper, 1982)

The storyline is very usual, a cute American family is haunted by ghosts and the hauntings become more and more violent each time. From a story by Steven Spielberg and directed by horror mastercafter Tobe Hooper Poltergeist is one of the cult Horror films of Cinema.

Ghost stories must interpel the viewer and the catharsis (identification of the public with the main characters) must be at its high. Well, here you have the most universal kind of human cell available: the family. Everything to help the catharsis. Moreover, there are no known actors in Poltergeist, a strategy Producer Spielberg wil re-use in his Jurassic Park, (there are known actors in J.P. but no big stars...).

On the side of the subplot of the story there are many interest links to make. First the depiction of the suburb, typically American (helping once again the catharsis) but here we'll discuss about how its expansion from the big megalopoles of the last thirty years have never stopped. The ever growing suburbs of America has been somewhat of a problem to the urbanists that tried to figure otu how to structure them but moreover how to make them living entities of their own. Since the 1950's, the working class has been having more and more money to spent on cars and bigger houses to extract them from the working ares, the cities and establish their family on the surrounding areas of these cities. Our main character, the father Steve Freeling, is the best representant of the Establishment that sold the houses of this entire suburb... Poltergeist is in sort of a critic of this kind of major land where every house looks like the next one and where every street looks like the other.
The fact that the suburb is situated on an ancient cemetary dramatically figures that for the profit big companies are ready to do any outrage to culture or the eternal rest of some poor deceased...

Another well used topic is the use of children in a ghost story. The public is easily convinceable that there are ghosts around when children are the first to see them; remember as a child how you were afraid of a strange form made by some shadow in the corner of the room, or by the twisted branch of a tree you could see by your window... Childish fears felt by kids on the screen are more believable and contribute to the so talk catharsis of the story telling.

Tobe Hooper was well advised and many Spielberg subjects are present in the story. This could have easily have been a film directed by Spielberg. But, Hooper is a better horror oriented director than Steven Spielberg who liked to play with alien instead of trying to frighten little girls... Of the so few Ghosts flicks I've seen Poltergeist is maybe one of the best around. Probably the most efficient!

Porky's

Porky's (Bob Clark, 1982)

This Bob Clark feature film was largely inspired by some of his teenage years growing up and discovering sexuality.

Like many comedies, the story isn't very important, it's the many events and made-up situations to make a gag or to tell a joke that really counts here. I didn't laugh that much while watching Porky's. The thing that make me laugh the most was because we used to call one of my friend Pee-Wee for the annoying red-head character in Porky's. On the comedy level, it put the standard of teenage sex matter movies and opened the way for the American Pie series. Today Porky's seems harmless but in 1982 it was a real bomb and for many film enthusiasts it's a cult film! Like for others The Rocky Horror Picture Show is a cult film...

I don't really know what to think about it. I didn't hated it neither did I loved it but it is definitely funny and juvenile... I think having seen it at 15 I would have laughed my ass out...

Gandhi

Gandhi (Richard Attenborough, 1982)


It's been a while since I've wanted to see Gandhi. I heard a little about him at University and thought the man did something pretty huge. He liberated India from Great Britain pratically by himself! This is the second time I encounter a film made by Richard Attenborough, the first one was A Bridge Too Far. Which I thought was good but not great. I had high expectations for Gandhi because of the many Oscars it won and the position on the Top 250 Films on IMDb. Well I must stop reading user reviews because everytime I get angry.

Like many biopics, Gandhi opens with the death its subject. The story retells by episodic scenes the major events of the life of Gandhi.

The directing like the film itself is very sober and simple, this fit well with the description of the life of Gandhi: he was a simple man. The film didn't impressed me very much and I must say that I'm a little disappointed while impressed by the life of Gandhi. A major positive aspect of this film is how it made me read about Gandhi and his achievements. When you see the film and realize what he has done in a single lifetime it's impressive! But the film didn't got very far and seems like a compilation of archives on Gandhi telling his good shots...

Not what I expected and not in a good way...

A Film Retrospective by Michaël Parent

White Dog un film de Samuel Fuller - Retrospective

One of the most underrated movies of all-time; Samuel Fuller's White Dog.

This is the story of a young Hollywood actress who hits a dog on the road a rescue him from his injuries. One day she discovers he is an attack dog and instead of taking all the advices she got she decides to take the dog to rehabilitate him from attacking people. They discover that the dog is not only trained to attack human beings but mainly to attack black people.

Many themes treated in White Dog are interesting because Fuller didn't wanted to censure himself on all the racist elements the plot contains. I must say that this film does not vehicule or encourage racism. This is one of the greatest affronts to racism. The main message to me is that even when a dog is brainwashed to death with racism you can throw the racist out of him! This is a great lesson from a great american filmmaker.

I must say this review is pretty concise but I refer you to Joseph Campanella with his Toerific Febuary at CINEMA FIST with a great essay on Samuel Fuller's White Dog.

A Film Retrospective by Michaël Parent