| Author | Message | ||
     Stephen Walsh (Stephenw) Username: Stephenw Registered: 03-2009 Posted From: 194.32.31.1 |
I saw mine last night: 'The White Ribbon' by Michael Haneke is an absolute masterpiece and very possibly the greatest film I have seen this decade!! An epic and minutely detailed recreation of life in one small country village in Germany on the brink of the First World War that has all the depth, power, subtlety and unforgettable characters and incidents of a classic 19th C. novel. This rural idyll is torn apart by fear and suspicion when an unknown malefactor plays a series of increasingly vicious "pranks" on the inhabitants [compare with Powell & Pressburger's 'A Canterbury Tale']. Part whodunnit, part comment on the rise of right wing intolerance in Germany and part insidiously creepy horror film [YES!!] portraying an outwardly perfect community corrupted from within by an unseen force of evil [ala 'Invasion Of The Body Snatchers' or 'Village Of The Damned']. Without doubt this is Haneke's masterwork to date! Perhaps the most hauntingly atmospheric movie I have seen since 'Picnic At Hanging Rock' (with the same aura of unfathomable mystery) and an inspired allegory on the rise of Nazism - with the village a prophetic microcosm of the German nation in the 1930s - this is one to watch and rewatch over and over again. Sublime cinema!!!! The guy deserves every bloody award going for this one... | ||
| Zed (Gary_mc) Username: Gary_mc Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 213.219.8.243 |
You lucky bugger - I really want to see this. | ||
| Mick Curtis (Mick) Username: Mick Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 194.106.220.83 |
I saw a review of this last week and it looked excellent. | ||
| Weber_gregston (Weber_gregston) Username: Weber_gregston Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 194.176.105.56 |
First time I've not picked up the cornerhouse programme in months and they've been showing this since last week, but it finishes on Thursday. And I can't bloody get there tonight or tomorrow and going Thursday means letting someone down. But it's tempting. | ||
| Stephen Walsh (Stephenw) Username: Stephenw Registered: 03-2009 Posted From: 194.32.31.1 |
I can't get some of the imagery out of my mind today. Beautiful glowing B&W cinematography as well which I imagine may have been a deliberate reference to 'Schindler's List'. I remember watching 'Heimat' on telly and this movie (all 2½ hours of it) crams as much fascinating historical detail in as did the early episodes of that series (set around the same time) but does it with a beautifully measured poetic sense that is utterly beguiling. For me the real directorial influence here is Carl Theodor Dreyer with the compositions having the same austere hypnotic beauty as 'Day Of Wrath' or 'Ordet'. Haneke has taken a monumental leap forward as a filmmaker with this one. I can't praise it enough! | ||
| Ramsey Campbell (Ramsey) Username: Ramsey Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 195.93.21.74 |
We were going to see it in any case, but now you've compared it to Ordet we'll be at the next showing. | ||
| Stephen Walsh (Stephenw) Username: Stephenw Registered: 03-2009 Posted From: 194.32.31.1 |
I hope you like it Ramsey and now I'm going to shut up about it before I start boring everyone!  Speaking of 'Ordet'... what was your reading of the ending of the film? I've seen it twice (big and small screen) and will watch it again and still I'm not sure if this was a real miracle or an elaborate set-up to restore the people's faith? Like all Dreyer's work it is a fascinating film worthy of endless debate. | ||
| Ramsey Campbell (Ramsey) Username: Ramsey Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 195.93.21.74 |
I took it as a miracle myself. I find that scene extraordinarily moving but also disturbing. | ||
| Tony (Tony) Username: Tony Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 86.170.178.4 |
Yes - what was with the biting? | ||
| Stephen Walsh (Stephenw) Username: Stephenw Registered: 03-2009 Posted From: 194.32.31.1 |
The reason I keep searching for a rational explanation to the "miracle" is because it is so disturbing in the wider context of the film. I can't believe Dreyer made me wish for the miraculous to be explainable as it runs counter to all my natural instincts. An extraordinary manipulation of the emotions. | ||
| Stephen Walsh (Stephenw) Username: Stephenw Registered: 03-2009 Posted From: 194.32.31.1 |
Anyone else decided on their FOTY yet? I'd also go for: Horror of the Year - Antichrist (The White Ribbon is borderline horror with lots of references to the genre but doesn't quite qualify) Sci-Fi of the Year - Moon Comedy of the Year - Inglourious Basterds Old Classic of the Year - Once Upon A Time In The West (pipping Bring Me The Head Of Alfredo Garcia, Barry Lyndon & North By Northwest!!) Turkey Of The Year - Terminator Salvation ...so far. | ||
| Protodroid (Protodroid) Username: Protodroid Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 147.252.230.126 |
None of the above do anything for me, I'm afraid. At the moment 2012 is the best theatrical release I've seen all year, which his telling. Oh, there was: Old Classic of the Year - SHADOW OF A DOUBT, though. | ||
| Stephen Walsh (Stephenw) Username: Stephenw Registered: 03-2009 Posted From: 194.32.31.1 |
On the big screen? Wow!! One of my very favourite Hitchcocks. Joseph Cotten's speech in the diner is one of the most chilling scenes in cinema for me. | ||
| Huw (Huw) Username: Huw Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 218.168.183.66 |
There are quite a few I still haven't seen (including Moon, Thirst, Antichrist and The White Ribbon) but so far one of the best, I think, has been Gus van Sant's Milk. I also liked District 9, Paranormal Activity and Dean Spanley. As for the worst: Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen, The Uninvited, The Unborn, and a bunch of others I've tried to blank out of my mind. | ||
| John Llewellyn Probert (John_l_probert) Username: John_l_probert Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 88.202.210.68 |
Horror of the Year: Dorian Gray (I know I'll be the only one who votes for this but I loved it) Sci-Fi of the Year: Moon (Best SF movie in years actually) Comedy of the Year: Bruno (The most I've laughed in a cinema in years and years) Really Bloody Awful Film of the Year: Inglourious Basterds (The more I think about it the more I really hated it and that's a rarity) | ||
| Zed (Gary_mc) Username: Gary_mc Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 81.96.240.106 |
I'm always way behind on cinema releases, but Drag me to Hell, Up, District 9 and Moon would all make my list. Best comedy: Shane Meadows' brilliant moc-doc Le Donk and Scor-Zay-Zee Best film I actually saw this year: The Wrestler | ||
| Zed (Gary_mc) Username: Gary_mc Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 81.96.240.106 |
Edit: Best recent film I actually saw this year: The Wrestler | ||
| Zed (Gary_mc) Username: Gary_mc Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 81.96.240.106 |
Just thought of another: "Colin". Excellent film, even ignoring the budgetary limitations. | ||
| Protodroid (Protodroid) Username: Protodroid Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 109.79.60.65 |
No, I didn't see SHADOW OF A DOUBT on the big screen. I couldn't believe the intensity of psychological trauma depicted in a film with so many picket fences and cosy black-and-white photography. It's much more disturbing than BLUE VELVET. | ||
| Stephen Walsh (Stephenw) Username: Stephenw Registered: 03-2009 Posted From: 82.17.255.28 |
SHADOW OF A DOUBT *** SPOILERS *** It really plays with the viewer's emotions as well. You don't want it to be him even though it's patently obvious from the beginning that Uncle Charlie must be the merry widow serial killer. Even when the last faint shadow of doubt has been removed I still caught myself wanting him to escape so as to protect his innocent sister from the awful knowledge of what he was. And the way his doting niece's innocence is gradually broken down is heartbreaking. In many ways this film is the exact inverse of Hitch's similar 'Suspicion' made two years earlier. A fabulous movie of immense subtlety that gets better and more unsettling with each viewing. It easily makes my Hitchcock Top 10. Due a rewatch soon... | ||
| Weber_gregston (Weber_gregston) Username: Weber_gregston Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 90.196.165.196 |
Was patricia hitchcock ever in a film that Alfred wasn't involved with? | ||
| Protodroid (Protodroid) Username: Protodroid Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 109.79.97.174 |
SHADOW OF A DOUBT *** SPOILERS *** Yes, Stephen. It's one of those films that becomes more disturbing as time passes and we learn more about what goes on inside those rows of pretty houses. That awful secret kept between a niece and her uncle has unsettling parallels for a more worldly, modern audience. I wonder if Hitch was addressing those darker themes consciously or not? | ||
| Craig (Craig) Username: Craig Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 75.4.246.118 |
I gotta be the dissenting voice here. I remembered SHADOW OF A DOUBT very fondly, but when I saw it again earlier this year, it didn't nearly hold up for me as it did so finely in my memory. I found it now heavy-handed, unsubtle (there is NO doubt, early on, this guy's a murderer; and I mean, we're telegraphed to be sure, far too early), and clumsy. I mean with all this, story-wise - it's dated unwell. To me, a similar-themed movie of far more disturbing nature - and starring Joseph Cotton too! - is the magnificently underrated A BLUEPRINT FOR MURDER (1953). | ||
| Tony (Tony) Username: Tony Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 213.122.107.13 |
Shadow of a Doubt is/was a favourite - my favourite hitch in fact. Not seen it in over fifteen years. Didn't Hitch always have his villain revealed early and play with our sympathies with them? It was never about whodunnit but can we still like them. | ||
| Ramsey Campbell (Ramsey) Username: Ramsey Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 195.93.21.74 |
I don't know that it's about persuading us to like them - I'd say it was about moral complexity. I saw Shadow of a Doubt again recently and certainly think it's one of Hitchcock's masterpieces. It surely doesn't attempt to conceal that Uncle Charlie is a killer, and so I don't understand the objection that his criminal nature is obvious early on. As for subtlety, that's a technique, not a merit in itself. It isn't only your favourite, Tony - it was the director's too. | ||
| Tony (Tony) Username: Tony Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 86.170.177.102 |
I was wondering that he was making us explore our feelings, what good and bad was, where they met. He made us see the good in bad people and vice-versa. The Robert Taylor character in Strangers on a Train, for instance - how much we rememember him, how much we sympathised with him, even though he was patently bad. Strangers must be my second favourite - it's just so rich. | ||
| Tony (Tony) Username: Tony Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 86.170.177.102 |
http://rogerebert.suntimes.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20040101/REVIEWS08/408 02009/1023 And get that last line... | ||
| Craig (Craig) Username: Craig Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 75.4.248.79 |
I didn't mean to imply revealing him early as the killer was in itself bad - but I seem to have remembered a different movie in my head, from what I saw again. I was remembering a movie of real doubt, along the lines of SUSPICION, I guess. But it wasn't just that: I just felt it to be not as masterful as his later greats, on second visit. I do know I'm in the itty-bitty minority on this one.... | ||
| Protodroid (Protodroid) Username: Protodroid Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 109.79.116.58 |
"I was wondering that he was making us explore our feelings, what good and bad was, where they met." I can restrain myself from typing the words TWIN PEAKS no longer! Like Hitchcock, Lynch implies that good and evil are a colloid. Light and dark bifurcate into ever finer laminae in the same person but, crucially, never mix. | ||
| Stephen Walsh (Stephenw) Username: Stephenw Registered: 03-2009 Posted From: 194.32.31.1 |
Could this also be applied to matter and anti-matter I wonder?! As for 'Shadow Of A Doubt'... the first time I watched it I knew Uncle Charlie must be the killer but kept hoping for some elaborate twist that would explain all the circumstantial evidence away. I'm sure this was Hitchcock's intention - to play, quite cruelly, with his audience's expectations and emotions especially given what they would have been used to following 'Suspicion'. It remains a masterpiece worthy of many repeat viewings and psychological interpretations. I agree that the coded hints at darker family secrets gives the film a contemporary sheen that protects it from "datedness". | ||
| Zed (Gary_mc) Username: Gary_mc Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 81.96.240.106 |
Just seen my film of the year: TRIANGLE. | ||
| Stephen Walsh (Stephenw) Username: Stephenw Registered: 03-2009 Posted From: 194.32.31.1 |
Glad you liked it so much, Zed. Have to say I found it pretty average - like a good idea for a half hour episode of 'The Twilight Zone' padded out to feature length with jarring horror/slasher elements. Weird, huh... | ||
| Zed (Gary_mc) Username: Gary_mc Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 213.219.8.243 |
I thought it was likea straight horror version of Last Year at Marienbad. Glorious stuff, and it pushed all my emotional buttons. | ||
| Stephen Walsh (Stephenw) Username: Stephenw Registered: 03-2009 Posted From: 194.32.31.1 |
Haven't seen 'Last Year At Marienbad' would you believe! I enjoyed 'Triangle' at the time for what it was but it didn't stay with me afterward. I love your enthusiasm for the film but still think 'Creep' is Christopher Smith's best to date. | ||
| Karim Ghahwagi (Karim) Username: Karim Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 80.196.50.16 |
I think my film of the year is Lee Daniels's 'Precious'- extraordinarily moving and disturbing. Films like Antichrist, Moon and District 9 were some of the best films of the year. |