Category Archives: Misc. Attributes

Categories that don’t fall under any of the other categories of categories.

Play Time (1967)

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aka Playtime

2007 #118
Jacques Tati | 115 mins | DVD | U

Play TimeI know some people love the work of Tati, just like there’s always someone who loves everything; personally, I find his films largely dull. His character, Monsieur Hulot, is like Mr Bean but less funny (don’t worry, I know Hulot comes first by a good few decades). There are some laughs to be had in Play Time, but they’re a long way in and not necessarily worth waiting for.

Play Time is certainly pertinent to the ‘Cityscapes’ course we were shown it as part of, but even the subtext (which is about as ‘sub’ as a space station), about the depressing similarity of modern cities, is repetitively over-done.

Recommended only as a cure for insomnia.

2 out of 5

Play Time featured on my list of The Five Worst Films I Saw in 2007, which can be read in full here.

Wild at Heart (1990)

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2007 #116
David Lynch | 120 mins | DVD | 18 / R

Wild at HeartMy experience of David Lynch’s work has so far been limited to Dune, the first short season of Twin Peaks, and Mulholland Drive. Admittedly, a list including the latter two isn’t that bad, but it fails to encompass any of the acclaimed films that made his name.

Wild at Heart doesn’t come much closer: a quick look at IMDb reveals that it only beats Dune and the Twin Peaks movie in user ratings. I think I can see why: it’s filled with mannered performances that can seem cheaper than those in daytime soaps (I presume this is deliberate, but some people just won’t get, or like, it); characters and plot threads that meander off and seem pointless, while others don’t come to anything; plus it lacks the opaqueness that many seem to hold as the key worthy feature of Lynch’s work.

In spite of its many faults I quite liked a lot of it, so my rating falls on the generous side. I still have no idea why there were so many Wizard of Oz references though.

4 out of 5

Bringing Out the Dead (1999)

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2007 #114
Martin Scorsese | 116 mins | DVD | 18 / R

Bringing Out the DeadIt’s hard to know what to make of this, because by the end it all seems a little pointless. The storyline, which follows Nicolas Cage’s paramedic across three nights in New York, is a mixture of short episodic medical incidents with longer threads that continue throughout. These connect and fall apart, feeling as episodic as the rest, and most of them don’t really lead anywhere.

Perhaps the best description is that it’s a collection of subplots in search of proper story. There are some decent scenes and good shots, but the film doesn’t seem to have anything to say, and it doesn’t end so much as simply fade to black when it runs out of things to do.

3 out of 5

Fantômas: In the Shadow of the Guillotine (1913)

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aka Fantômas: À l’ombre de la guillotine

2007 #111
Louis Feuillade | 54 mins | DVD | PG

FantomasThe first of the silent Fantômas films (I reviewed the second previously).

It’s interestingly structured: there’s no ‘origin story’ for Fantômas, he just is an infamous master criminal, who’s introduced in what would undoubtedly be a pre-titles sequence today, before the story switches to follow Inspector Juve and his quest to solve the disappearance of Lord Beltham… which of course leads back to Fantômas. Its pulp fiction roots shine through in the entertaining plot that’s just far-fetched enough.

As I said before, it’s not for everyone, but for those who enjoy this sort of thing it’s unmissable.

4 out of 5

The Crowd (1928)

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2007 #110
King Vidor | 98 mins | TV

The CrowdLate silent-era drama — though you’d be forgiven for thinking it was a comedy until halfway, when the light antics of a young couple in ’20s New York give way to some increasingly dark drama (interesting trivia: seven endings were shot for distributors to choose from, some happy and some sad; all chose sad ones. However, the copy we saw (taped from an ’80s TV showing) had a happy ending).

The first half is gentle but amusing; the sudden shift catches the viewer off-guard, undoubtedly making what follows more effective. The main character is in many ways pretty useless and at least some of the problems that befall him are his own fault, yet his comedic treatment in the first half makes you care for him throughout the second.

If you can accept the shifting styles of an age before genre was rigidly defined, The Crowd is a worthwhile experience.

4 out of 5

Manhatta (1921)

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2007 #109a
Paul Strand & Charles Sheeler | 10 mins | download

Another ’20s city film, showing off (as you might guess from the title) parts of New York. The focus appears to be industrial — skyscrapers under construction, finished architecture, tug boats, trains near the docks; the people of the city only crop up at the start and close, and then only in faceless crowds. It’s interspersed with poetic intertitles, which make for an odd contrast.

Once again, I feel that, unless you want to go getting a bit pretentious (and, to be fair, at least some of these films were made for just that), the main interest here is in an historical perspective: it provides another snapshot of a time and place long gone.

2 out of 5

The full short is available on Wikipedia.

Skyscraper Symphony (1929)

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2007 #108b
Robert Florey | 9 mins | download

Another ‘city symphony’ film, this time a short one of skyscrapers in New York.

It’s probably hard to ‘appreciate’ this without getting a little pretentious; certainly, it’s much more aimed at creating the feeling of a city, or a visual representation of it, or something like that, than it is with, say, showing pretty views of New York’s buildings. That said, in between the meaningful mucking about, there are some fairly impressive sights to be seen.

2 out of 5

Available on YouTube.

À propos de Nice (1930)

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2007 #108a
Jean Vigo | 23 mins | download | U

Short film about the French city of Nice, mixing documentary-style footage of people with shots of the architecture, as well as clearly staged scenes (a man getting sunburnt, for example).

There’s a certain playful edge to it all, not just with content such as a garish parade and crazy dancing, but with amusing tricks (again, the sunburning), camera tomfoolery (for example, moving it to follow the loops of arches at speed; or using slow motion and sped-up shots), and picking out shots of pedestrians apparently for their annoyance at being filmed.

It’s an interesting amalgamation, then: part art, part documentary, part sketch show.

3 out of 5

Berlin: Symphony of a Great City (1927)

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aka Berlin: Die Sinfonie der Grosstadt / Berlin: Symphony of a Metropolis

2007 #108
Walther Ruttmann | 65 mins | download

Berlin: Symphony of a Great CityGerman silent movie depicting a day in the ‘life’ of Berlin, part of the ‘city symphony’ genre that was popular around the 1920s. This makes it one of those films that is in some way Important, but sadly it’s still a bit, well, boring.

Essentially it’s a documentary showing many facets of city life and industry, though with no kind of narration and often edited in an artistic fashion (fast cutting and crazy angles to represent the chaos of a busy junction, for example). It has its moments (the opening train journey being the highlight for me), and I’m sure some would find the footage of ’20s life fascinating, but it’s the sort of thing that’s just too dull for my tastes.

For something similar which I enjoyed a bit more, try the Russian Man With a Movie Camera.

2 out of 5

Traffic in Souls (1913)

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2007 #106
George Loane Tucker | 88 mins | VHS

Traffic in SoulsSilent movie (Universal’s first feature-length release) about white slavery in America. You don’t expect that from a 1913 film, eh?

Of course, the issue is handled in a suitable way for the period: why the women are kidnapped is never alluded to (in reality it was for prostitution) and all the Bad Men are brought to justice.

It’s not all bad: in a surprising move for the time, the main villain is an apparently-respectable society gentleman who publicly campaigns against white slavery; by a similar token, the kidnappers are made up of women as well as men.

The first half zips along an intricate multi-stranded narrative covering several groups of unrelated characters, but as they come together it begins to slow: what seems to be the climax takes half the film to play out its immediately-obvious events. It sadly ruins something that was initially rather promising.

2 out of 5