Angst Essen Seele Auf (Rainer Werner Fassbinder, 1974)

Rainer Werner Fassbinder, another well-known director on my watchlist. And why not start with his most acclaimed work Angst Essen Seele Auf ? When I read the synopsis I was afraid it might be a somewhat judgmental and politically polarizing picture. And even though the director portrays a one-sided ignorant human species at first, I think he ended up with a picture from a pretty nuanced point of view.

On a rainy day Emmi (Brigitte Mira), an elderly German cleaning lady, finds shelter in a bar frequented by mainly Arabic workers. One of them, the sympathic but somewhat simple Ali (El Hedi ben Salem), asks her to dance and one thing leads to another. He ends up in her apartment, witnessed by the narrow minded neighbours who joke that she may be buying a new carpet. Emmi falls in love with the Moroccan and she decides to marry him so he can live with her. The response of her community is flat out horrible. Her children freak out when she brings them her news and claim never to talk to her again. Her colleagues start ignoring her and even when the odd couple is having a drink, the bar owners are constantly staring at them (deliberately overdone by Fassbinder). Emmi is slowly losing it but Ali keeps pointing out that they are not the ones who are bad.

So far it seems that the director wants to give his audience a black and white view on the problematic situation but slowly things are turning a little bit, giving the movie a nuance boost and making it a great picture. Of course a fresh relationship between an elderly woman and a much younger foreigner creates friction and their marriage is tested in a lot of ways. It also turns out that Emmi her environment appreciates and needs her more than she thought at first (even the racist grocery store owner is missing his regular customer).

Fassbinder clearly marks out the good and the bad ‘Germans’ that are involved in this racial question. Every supporting role has a well-defined function, there is the landlord who assumes Ali is a lodger at first and points out that Emmi is not allowed to have a lodger. When he finds out the two are a couple, he is not resisting. The same holds for the police. When they are called out by some concerned neighbours who claim to be bothered by the Arabic music playing in Emmi and Ali’s apartment their reaction is neutral. The director makes silly judges out of the ordinary people who are in Emmi her world, not the whole world.

I am very content with the film style of Fassbinder. He is often framing the couple in a box or is secluding them from their environment. Surely he is overdoing some of the situations but it strengthens the point he wants to make. The best example of the overdone ignorance is maybe the character played by himself, as the male chauvinist son-in-law of Emmi.

All in all a great picture, not only because of its sharp message in interesting times (the maker is even hinting once or twice to WW II), but surely also because of a smart film style, good acting performances and an overall realistic script.

8/10

Carrie (Brian de Palma, 1976)

Like I stated a couple of reviews ago, I am not a big fan of Brian de Palma as a filmmaker, at least I think he is somewhat overrated. Nevertheless he did make some (cult) classics that I feel I should watch. One of them is his version of the well-known story from Stephen King, Carrie.

I remember watching the first 10 minutes some years ago after which I decided to turn off the TV. Why? Maybe it was because of the horrible opening scene (I mean that it is cinematic kitsch, not necessarily horrible pictures) or because Sissy Spacek annoyed me. To start with the latter, I actually appreciate this actress much better after watching Badlands and 3 Women. Perhaps inspired by the horror-fun of Cabin in the Woods I saw recently I felt like watching Carrie, and I am afraid it did not fully convince me….

De Palma is doing an OK job in telling his story at first. After the shower scene (which is a key scene of course, but unnecessarily stretched in my opinion) we get a good grip on the situation Carrie is in, who is merely an outcast because of her extremely religious mom, portrayed perfectly by Piper Laurie (Twin Peaks). The rest of the cast is kept on the surface, motivations of even Bobby (who is ‘forced’ to take the unpopular girl to the prom and seems to develop feelings for her) are not explained by de Palma. Of course we feel the build up towards the climax at the prom (somehow I knew what was going to happen, just have a look at the dvd cover or movie poster…) but the way towards this scene is not exactly perfect. De Palma devotes a lot of time to certain characters (John Travolta….) which doesn’t seem to add anything and as a result the impact of the prom scene is not as overwhelming as it could have been, but luckily it still is a very strong sequence.

Obviously the director has been putting all his skills in this one notorious scene, and he keeps stretching which builds up suspense effectively, even though we know what will happen. Also we have created some sympathy for the title character. De Palma’s talent makes the prom scene very effective, which again shows that he is a great director (but a good director doesn’t make a good filmmaker necessarily).

Last but not least, overall this picture is not that scary. I guess it was in the 70’s regarding its status, but I never felt a lot of suspense and wasn’t shocked at all, something I did experience during for instance The Exorcist. The horror genre has renewed its standards over the years of course (think about some more realistic movies like Eden Lake) but I was expecting a bit more from such a classic.

This movie didn’t fail completely but some different choices (more character building or background) could have made it a great film. Now I will merely remember it because of one or two great scenes and a strong performance by Spacek, who again proved to be one of the great actresses of her time.

6/10 

Yi Yi (Edward Yang, 2000)

If there’s one part of the world I should watch more movies from it’s definitely Asia. Every now and then I do decide to watch Asian cinema and it rarely disappoints me, but somehow I am not watching as many as I should. Why this is? Not a clue. Maybe the big cultural difference compared to the ‘conventional’ Hollywood movies I grew up with and defined my standards. Yesterday I decided it was about time to watch the 3 hour long Yi Yi from Taiwan, and boy was it worth my time!

The movie portrays a family living in Taipei. We kick off with a wedding where the whole family is presented to us. The family is shortly forced to take care of their grandmother who is in a coma. In a network narrative the movie mainly follows four family members starting with the dad NJ, who is unhappy in his job and forced to do business with a Japanese videogame company associate, making him aware of the purely commercial aim of his colleagues. When he runs into an old flame he evaluates his entire life and being. His youngest, 8 year old son Yang Yang, has trouble with his teachers and female students and likes to make photographs. His daughter is getting involved with the boyfriend of her friend who lives next door. Finally we follow NJ’s brother-in-law who has a lot of trouble with his newly wed involving an ex-girlfriend who shows up at their baby shower.

The strength of this film is the universality of the story. Even though it plays in Taiwan, the stories are those of every day life and could be yours or mine just as well. It never dramatizes or wants to be pretentious, it simply shows us the lives of the different generations in a family and what they are dealing with. The length of 173 minutes never feels too long, again nothing special or spectacular happens in this movie but it gets your attention from the first to last minute. The final scene brings all the members together and is simply brilliant. A movie that gets under your skin with ease without ever forcing anything.

Of course from a Hollywood perspective associations with movies like Magnolia or Babel can be made. The main difference between those two titles and Yi Yi is the fact that I would call this movie more modest and calm. The story doesn’t really build up to a climax but nevertheless fascinated me until the last second. It sounds corny, but this is really a movie about life, nothing more and nothing less. The writer-director Edward Yang deserves a lot of credit (received the best director award at Cannes) for making such a delicate and pure picture. I couldn’t pick one or two scenes that make the difference, it really is a movie as a whole, demonstrating the brilliance of the writer. If I had to pick one scene though there is a wonderful sequence where NJ and his former love are evaluating their lives, which reminded me of Richard Linklater’s Before Sunset, but again I have a Hollywood reference frame.

Yi Yi impressed me deeply and it likely might end up as one of my personal favorites (I suspect a second viewing will impress me even more). I will not spend too many words, just watch this ‘small’ masterpiece. I will for sure search for more Asian films like this. Comes highly recommended!

10/10