Sunday, July 28, 2019

#111 - Mon Oncle


5 years later, we have Tati's first color film and the return of Mr. Hulot in Mon Oncle.   This is a different kind of story.  Instead of focusing on the banality of vacation life, we're seeing the banality of modernism.   The movie is almost a caricature of modernity although satire was the word I saw thrown around.

Huhot lives in a very rustic classical part of a French city - his sister and family live in a ridiculous modern art sort of house that looks nothing like the rest of the area.   The movie highlights some of the absurdities and joys of these two panes of glass.   One part that struck out to me is the rich couple discussing music and driving off to a fancy dinner club while Hulot and company stumble into and out of the local dive bar and you get the impression the lower classes, like the lower decks on Titanic, were a better place to party.

Huhot has a lot of interactions here with his nephew - (hence, the title - My Uncle) - and you def. get the impression the boy is latching onto a world outside the sterile world he lives in

once again a lot of the gags are visual, the dialogue sparse - and the sounds are sharply contrasted between an easy French Cafe Soundtrack and the harshness of a factory, with clangs, buzzes, dings, dongs, hammers, etc.  I guess this was his most popular film - and I must confess I didn't feel like it was filmed in 1958 - I thought it was more of a 60's or 70's film so the color and the photography are great.

Might be worth getting a box set someday - guess we'll see - anyways - got one more Tati to go in this set of films -

Wednesday, July 17, 2019

#110 - Monsieur Hulot's Holiday


for our next 3 films, we have the comedic presence of Jacques Tati as Monsieur Hulot, a sort of slapstick character - (at least in this film)

I have never heard of him before this film, but Tati was well known and loved in France - he makes films with a lot of physical gags - I saw comparisons to Chaplin but based on what we've seen he reminded me a lot of W.C. Fields.

This is his 2nd film, and his first with this character Hulot who we'll see again in the next two pictures - it's sort of a plotless string of gags and humor but it's enjoyable, and finally we're back on the streaming channel so I can not have to deal with waiting for DVD's - hehehe

The complete box set wasn't released till the 700's - but we'll get half of it out of the way here - something else interesting was that I watched the 1978 restoration - where Jacques had cut out about 12 minutes from his first film - I guess he was like George Lucas - sorta re-editing and recutting his work until later in life.

This is just a fellow going on holiday in a sleepy seaside tourist town where he has a string of misadventures - good stuff - Curious to see how the character goes in the later films - I might add too the dialogue is pretty sparse and that's fine - but it goes to show how much of this humor is meant to be drank in with the eyes as opposed to hearing it.

RB

Wednesday, July 10, 2019

#109 - The Scarlet Empress


ach - my dvd for this one had problems - sure looking forward to seeing these on the Criterion channel again instead of DVD's with flaws

This is part of a 6 movie set (or will be released as such) - of a great collabration between the sultry and erotic Marlene Dietrich, and the director Josef von Sternberg, who introduced her to America thru these 6 films.   This one was the 5th

This is an entertaining if a bit campy film about the rise of Catherine the Great, probably told just a bit ahistorical and 1930'ish.   But lord, the sets - a macabre and twisted world is constructed here - the sets and scenes and costumes are both garish and ghoulistic, cramped yet expansive - and as Marlene's daughter put it - this was the one time she had to compete with the set for attention.

I always get a kick out of seeing the 1700's characters speaking with perfect American L.A. accents - not pretending to be Russian or even medieval.   

I gotta say, I would probably be interested in the Blu-ray and absolutely want to see some more of their films together - I assume they'll be later on in the collection but in this case, this was added to the box set years after it's initial release - the only special feature was an interview with Marlene from 1971 but honestly, my DVD had a couple crucial scuffs on it that resulted in me having to find a download copy to catch a 3 minute skip at the wedding and humorously the last 4 minutes of the film

anyhow this is really good - I might get another one in before the weekend but it looks like we're getting a burst of Jacques Tati films - 3 in a row, so hey something new on the way

This was visually an incredible film - I'll save my other thoughts on Marlene for future posts as this one was literally, I think, the first film I've seen her in - can you believe it?