Reviews

Michael Oblowitz is a passionate documentarist - his life long love affair with surfing is immediately apparent - this entertaining slice of surfing life will both introduce you to a surfing legend and a master surfing movie maker - go see it!!

The prologue of this movie is actually the epilogue. Pasolini emphasizes the artistic freedom to turn the world inside out and fictionally destroy all conventions. In a pseudo-documentary vignette intellectuals debate with the new industrialists {formerly "the workers"} and future plutocrats as to whether they will become subsumed by the bourgeoisie as a result of being inevitably corrupted by the trappings of wealth and power.

In the jump between the main story and the prologue a motif, {repeated throughout the entire movie}, of the Hebrews wandering in the wilderness, hoping to find the Promised Land, is inserted

We are introduced to the nuclear family in its bourgeois construct as an Industrialist with huge factories and a magnificent Milanese villa, his trophy wife, a beautiful female, sybaritic, vacuous and fashionably attired and coiffured, as befits her class, their son Pietro and daughter Odetta. All of them are illustrated as typically bourgeois, self-satisfied and complacently entitled to lead their lives empty of meaning. All bourgeois households of their class have servants and the religious peasant Amelia runs their household.

Pasolini then has a metamorphic agent, the boyish Terence Stamp, enter into their idyll. A cypher for the creative force of the auteur Pasolini himself, "the boy" insinuates himself into the individual lives of each of the five personae in the household. First, for no explicable reason other than the sexiness of his appearance, {Pasolini's homosexuality focuses on Stamp's prettiness and young slender physique}. Stamp's personality is quite reserved and introverted, so although he is seen to be reading the iconic gay poet Rimbaud, and playing the fool in a boyish way, we are never quite convinced of any intellectual passion.

The five seductions are all carnal, starting with the peasant Amelia, who is overwhelmed by Stamp's "aura" and, initially trying to avoid her "fall" by attempting suicide, succumbs to her desire for sexual congress with "the boy". In quick succession "the boy" inducts the younger son into the homosexual life. Here the thought occurs that a typical initiation into homosexuality by the older man would most likely be Pasolini's personal narrative, especially, as the story develops we see the son overcome his anguish by sublimating into the arts, as Pasolini himself, did. Next "the boy" is seduced by the mother and then the daughter pulls him into the bedroom. Finally the heterosexual father {in a typical gay fantasy "all straight men are potentially gay" } is seduced by "the boy". Having performed his role of alchemical mischief we are introduced to Tolstoy's novella "The Death Of Ivan Ilyich" when as if enacting the final chapter, the father falls ill and "the boy' takes his legs and holds them above his head giving him relief - it should be noted that Nabakov lectured on this work stating that Tolstoy considered bourgeois hypocrisy to be a moral death or suicide of the soul.

Then, suddenly "the boy" - the revolutionary agent of transformation - announces his abrupt departure {this takes place almost exactly half way into the movie}. Like the aftermath of a bad L.S.D. trip, {Pasolini created this movie in 1967 at the height of the 60's revolution}, the confusion and dismay of the five individuals are the necessary results of picking up the pieces, and living a life with new values, and the meaninglessness of the past.

Of the five the most personal is the son Pietro, who leaves home to take the path of the artist {Rimbaud's calling} and become a painter {deeply inspired by a coffee table art book of Francis Bacon}. He muses that now that his past delusions of normality were shattered by his realization of his homosexuality, he must embrace his difference and become a creative power himself. He becomes a painter and paints on glass reminiscent of Duchamp's "Bride Stripped Bare" - he goes through many changes and humiliations, eventually restoring his equilibrium and health, by realizing the inconsequence of his life in relation to the universe. Here you have Pasolini's personal odyssey integrated into the story.

As to the other players, Amelia the servant returns to her country roots, where she becomes an austere penitent, and performs the Catholic miracle of levitation, only to be buried by an old peasant woman {played by Pasolini's mother} and once again with reference to Tolstoy's "Death of Ivan Ilyich" she declares that she is not dying but acting out of sympathy for those that are still living in moral death, aka the bourgeoisie. The mother in true homosexual style becomes a woman driven to find young boys { as in gay "cottaging", rent-boys, etc,}, and has anonymous sex with them. We leave her in a state of ungratified anguish. Odetta, the daughter {described by her mother as "caught up in the Cult of Family"}, allows her life force to seep away, while the father gives away his factories, and strips himself naked, ending up like his wife, wandering in the wilderness with no hope of finding the Promised Land.

Another peculiarity of this beautifully framed cinema is Pasolini's gay framing of the male crotch which is in contrast to the usual Hollywood focus on the female mammary, buttocks and legs. There is also some clothing fetishism with the camera lovingly gazing at the male Y-fronts. {underpants}

At the end of the explication of a theorem "Q.E.D." is affixed "that which has been demonstrated". I recommend this movie to those that are interested in the art of the 60's, gay art, revolutionary politics, and Surrealism in cinema. Its a mind blowing experience!

While Don Juan and Lothario are literary constructs, entirely fictional, Giacomo Casanova like De Sade {15 years his junior} was a flesh and blood historically verifiable person. Casanova was born in Venice 286 years ago in 1725 and he died 73 years later in 1798 having witnessed the fall of the Age of Decadence and the transformation brought by the French Revolution. That his name is synonymous to this day with the successful pursuit of sexual conquest is due to the fact that Casanova was a great writer who recorded his life in a 12 volume opus titled "The Story of my Life". This episodic work of literature apparently describes in detail Casanova's amorous victories on the sexual battlefield claiming and describing the seduction of at least 120 different woman.

Fellini, the year after Pasolini made his illustration of De Sade's literary perversity in Salo, brought this illustration of some of the episodes of Casanova's sexual exploits. The movie opens with the masked Carnival depicting Venus, {the goddess after whom Venice was named} rising out of the sea as her ancient Greek source goddess Aphrodite did before her. The masking of the revellers was an encouragement for the participants to ignore class differences and thus increase the scope of orgiastic interaction sponsored by the patron goddess of Love, Venus,

A masked man receives a letter proposing an assignation on an island palace with a woman masquerading as a nun, Casanova, revealed to us as a Dandy in extravagant attire of opulent and decadent fashion. Although historically dark haired Fellini portrays Donald Sutherland, {with false nose and jaw}, as a convincing Casanova, a foppishly ringletted blonde. As this is a cinematic examination of the life and technique of one of the most outrageous ladies man in modern history, the viewer is immediately introduced to Giacomo's modus operandi or seduction formulae. Casanova is not a bully but is much more adept at exploiting female gullibility with poetic declarations of deep and undying love which he combined with his peacockish appearance and intimate confessions of ardent desire and you have the story of his life in a nutshell, Other attributes that also helped garner his reputation was the reputed size of his penetrative organ and the athleticism of his ability to maintain sexual intercourse for long extended periods with an economy of repeated but unvaried thrusts leading eventually to orgasm. This delaying technique similar to "karezza" and tantric practices helped spread the name of Casanova as the ultimate stud of all time.

Apart from his reputation as a sexual libertine Casanova was eloquent and funny. The ability to make people laugh has always had aphrodisiac stimulation. After the conquest of the pseudo-nun Casanova has success with a neurotic young girl whom he cures from constantly fainting with a dose of sex magic. In a later episode we are introduced to the soirée' of Madame D'Urfee who believes that impregnation by Casanova would lead to the passing of her soul to a male child and then onto immortality. Casanova had performance problems with her as she was an ancient wrinkly and his ability to raise an erection had to be assisted by one of his lovers who had to amusedly stand by his side and wiggle her rear in order to facilitate his potency. It worked and Casanova made off with one of the many fortunes he made and lost during a life of spontaneous and opportunistic self-invention.

Among the most memorable set pieces that Fellini orchestrates is a wonderful dance in exquisite costume at the dinner provided by the hunchback and a young male ballerina. The costumes throughout the movie are fantastic. After the dance Casanova voices his disagreement with the notion that the male is the tempter. Henrietta, his lover at the time {played by the gorgeous Tina Aumont} is to leave him in one of the great blows he suffered in his sexual adventures. She managed to bring some sense of emotional loss which went beyond Casanova's usual rhetorical protestations of besotted love.

The Nino Roti score of sad music box lament and Casanova's most prized possession - his phallic winged mechanical toy which like a metronome allowed Casanova to keep a steady thrust. Apart from overwhelming woman with the false flattery of his supposed personal interest Casanova also reveals in the sex competition at the Prince Del Brand's Palace that he has an energy drink containing raw eggs and ginger and cinnamon, which he uses to keep his erection for up to an hour.

What happens to the ageing Casanova hundreds of years before the coming of Viagra? In Freud's theory the sexual energy with no capacity for expression becomes channeled to more productive outlets. In Casanova's case his last 12 years were spent writing and revising his major work "The Story of my Life"

Fellini chose to give the mood of the movie a certain disappointment as if Casanova was never satisfied and always a depressive in nature, but this does not make sense, as it stands to reason that as a young man part of Casanova's attraction was as a bon vivant, raucous, bawdy, randy and full of life. However the movie is styled as Fellini's Casanova and the odyssey it depicts - the life of Casanova - has been described as the greatest autobiography ever written.

That such a man existed is historical proof that some men are closer to the gods than anyone else. Fellini gives you sumptuousness and thought, {it is reputedly Fellini's personal favorite of all his oeuvre}. However, Bunuel on viewing the movie walked out before the end. I found it interesting as a working study of satyriasis and nymphomania which are fields rarely examined by auteurs.

This movie is a testament to the power of poetry and its capacity to dwarf the medium of cinema. Pasolini merges the rites of passage towards 'bildung', {German concept for the development of civilizing Culture}, using five separate themes; - the immature rapport between a wealthy, young bourgeois couple, {named Julian and Ida}, the dilemma of Julian's parents, who desire the union, {it would be materially beneficial}, and the contrasting styles of two German plutocrats, - all this Pasolini combines and contrasts with the historical Italian vagabond life of a countryside bandit , circa the early 1500's, armed with a musket, roving the barren hilly escarpment in the Pompeian district and preying on unarmed, vulnerable Christian pilgrims on their way to Rome.

Julian and Ida play at being in love - but their inexperience leads them to compromise reality with their love of words. Julian is a spoilt young man who has been infantilized by his doting mother, who in her ensuing dialogue with Ida reveals herself to be totally blind to her son's character, believing instead that Julian has all the laudable attributes of a good German.

The narrative flow concerning this German family, shot as an interior with much opulence, antique furniture and Renaissance paintings, in enormous palatial rooms, which as the story moves forward, is intercut with desolate scenic waste as the vagabond displays primitive savagery, in killing, dismembering and cannibalizing his victims. These scenes are in a landscape that is evocatively lyrical and empty of civilization {that is apart from the hymns which are beautifully chanted by the pilgrims on their way to destruction}.

In a parody of Godard and Truffaut, it soon becomes obvious that the love of the two 'pretty young things' is doomed to fail {as the barrier that they set up between each other with meaningless words becomes insurmountable}. The movie now shifts into its essential focus. The two plutocrats, the one, being Julian's father Herr Klotz, a German word for 'idiot' or blockhead, and the other, Herr Herdhitze, meaning 'hot fire' {possibly a reference to the exterminating ovens}, square up as two contrasting sides of the German psyche. Klotz, a humanist, is a cultivated man with a sense of cynicism and an appreciation of the accurate satirical art works of George Grosz - he sees himself depicted by Grosz sitting in a café with a sexy young secretary on his lap, cigar in his mouth and a piggish face - he also refers to Brecht's championship of the workers. Herdhitze, a technocrat, on the other hand, refers to himself as a man of science, who despises individuality, and wants to convert all the impoverished farmers to technicians - he has no soul at all.

The two men face off with the core of the German problem - their love of the meat of the pig. Their dialogue .... Klotz - 'the Germans love their sausage' to which Herdhitze replies 'shit' Klotz 'but they do defecate a lot'. The ironic impasse between the two Nazis is whether Jews are pigs or not - with the added Surreal contradiction of, if the Jews are pigs why do the Germans love their pork. and why do they grunt like pigs?

The year is 1959, in the German quest for an economic miracle, questions of Jews and culture are easily overcome, and the two plutocrats combine forces, in the pursuit of their worship of material wealth. Meanwhile Julian has resolved his confusion, and sacrifices himself to the totem of the pig, by going to the German Temple - the Pigsty - and there offers himself as an anointed meal to the pigs

Pasolini has wrought a great work of Art that might have been an Epic Poem or a great novel or a great Painting like Picasso's 'Guernica' or Goya's 'Atrocities of War'. He certainly has no sympathy whatsoever for the Nazi German and his god 'The Pig'.

This is a difficult movie to digest, but it's rationale is crystal clear. If you are interested in the History of the Intellect, then this movie is unmissable.

Bertolucci, having made The Conformist and The Spider's Strategy in 1970, had a simple fantasy from which he was to make The Last Tango in Paris. He was now deep into his Freudian view of existence being fundamentally a phenomenon of sexually driven events. Last Tango was a simple story of a man who meets a woman completely by chance, and then has anonymous sex with her over a short period {three days} in which time, he makes personal explorations that eventually coalesce into a realization of the emotional heart of his existential dilemma.

As with his previous movies, the Roman goddess Fortuna, {that is human fate or destiny}, was of paramount interest to Bertolucci. Marlon Brando had recently completed The Godfather, {not yet released}, and was told of Bertolucci's project by friends. He met with Bertolucci in Paris, viewed The Conformist, {which he had not yet seen}, discussed their common interest in Freud's theories, and agreed to take the main role in Last Tango, infusing the movie with improvisations and autobiographical memories. Destiny had delivered the contemporary world's preeminent movie actor, and Bertlucci proceeded to realize his fantasy.

Brando, now a man in early middle age, {45} opens the movie with a close up of his majestic features in anguish, haranguing God for his, yet to be revealed, predicament. The same train that ends The Conformist passes overhead in this opening sequence. He looks visibly unhappy, but still handsome enough to catch the eye of a passing young Parisian "hippie chick", {the period being the 60's}. The camera then follows her trajectory past a beautiful old apartment, where her eye is arrested by a poster offering an apartment to rent and a telephone number. She rushes to the nearest Bistro and once again encounters the gaunt, disheveled, handsome figure of Brando coming out of the phone booth. Later, in the apartment, to her surprise and amazement, she once again encounters Brando, who had completely by fate seen the same poster advertisement. She is young, sexually active, and a believer in allowing one's sexual impulses freedom of expression {a part of the fashionable 60's revolution}. They find their attraction to have sexual irresistibility. They copulate ferociously. She is simultaneously, having another relationship with her fiancée, a film director, making a cinema verite portrait of his wordy, and frivolously romantic but unconsummated quest for her sexuality {a subtext and contrast to her more compelling and physical intercourse with Brando}. Afterwords, when she voices some curiosity about his identity Brando makes it clear, that he desires total anonymity. No language or dishonesty - a relationship of essential sexuality

We do, in the unraveling of the plot, find out more about Brando's life in Paris. He was married to a woman with whom he had a relationship, of great intimacy, {they told each other everything}. Their bohemian marriage was centered around her small hotel with it residents drawn from the underclass of prostitutes, musicians and drug addicts. Previously he had been an adventurer traveling the world and like Gauguin, {and Brando himself}, sojourned in Tahiti. His wife had inexplicably committed suicide, leaving him bereft and confused vacillating between anger and sorrow as he tried to make sense of the aftermath and pick up the pieces.

The girl who returns regularly to the apartment, which Brando rents and she has the key for, is fascinated by her mysterious lover, with a scatological bent, and a personal taste for bawdy Elizabethan comedic language, {Brando is very funny!!}. After much sex, including heterosexual anal sex, {which certainly had a huge influence on the sexual habits and practices of the world's heterosexual population}, Brando vanishes from the apartment leaving her distraught. This allows her to finally commit to marriage to her enthusiastic, film director boyfriend.

Then the climax, Brando the man with no name, reappears. He has decided that he has an emotional life after all. He pursues her. There is a great Tango scene where he drunkenly capitulates to her, begging her to start a life with him as a couple. She has had enough of his craziness and constant vacillation between tenderness and brutality. Her equilibrium is totally out of kilter. She does not want to continue with this labyrinthine path of insane desire and hopeless insecurity ..........................

A great partnership between Brando, the genius and Bertolucci, the genius. adds up to a genius of a movie

The question this movie poses, {as did its source, the novel from which it is adapted, The Conformist by Alberto Moravia}, is why would a man, educated in both philosophy and the classics, want to forgo his capacity to be a freethinker and critic, and instead, identify with an immoral, vulgar, corrupt, totalitarian political consciousness, we know from the unfolding of events, to be the case in Italy's version of Nazism, that is the Fascist dictatorship of Benito Mussolini.

The subject of the movie, a late 1930's Roman radio producer and Fascist propagandist, named Marcello Clerici, is personally ambitious to rise in the political hierarchy and improve his position in the Fascist society in which history and destiny have placed him. The Colonel whose assistance he seeks seems surprised that he is not the typically corrupt, immoral, or driven by greed type, whom he says they usually attract.

Marcello in an exchange with his best friend Italo, {a blind, intellectual cynic, who broadcasts Fascist propaganda, on the radio}, informs him of his forthcoming marriage to a pretty but vacuous young petit bourgeois woman, with whom he shares nothing in common,, but he emphasizes the attraction to be her normality. Italo is amazed that a person so different from the "hoi polloi" as Marcello is, would want to be "normal".

The central theme of this movie is then addressed, with a flashback sequence to Marcello's childhood, {in true Freudian style} , and we are shown the pivotal scene of a 13 year old Marcello, effeminately dressed being bullied in the playground by his peers. He walks disconsolately on the road, while his chauffeur in true haute bourgeois style follows behind him in the family limousine. The 13 year old Marcello then finds himself the victim of homosexual abuse {possibly sodomy} at the hands of the homosexual chauffeur called Lino. In Freud's seduction theory {which the auteur Bertolucci and the creator Moravia were both familiar with} childhood traumas and abuse would become the basis for adult neurosis and lead to otherwise inexplicable and aberrant adult behavior. This event and the phantasy's that were formed to allow the subconscious to deal with this trauma become the perverse condition which force Marcello to abandon his developed capacity to differentiate between acts that enhance the existential reality and those that degrade - those that according to his insane father, {a fantastic sequence in the asylum} cause "slaughter and misery"..

The movie then changes genre, and location. Marcello and his empty- headed wife go to Paris on a twofold mission - both to honeymoon and to perform his Fascist mission of eliminating his former philosophy tutor Professor Quadri. The movie now becomes a conspiracy-thriller as the Professor's beautiful and intelligent wife, a sexual libertine, has dalliances with both Marcello {who for the first time has genuine emotion towards this manly {virago} woman. Anna Quadri,also in turn, seduces Giulia Clerici, {Marcello's wife}, and the seduction motif is carried forward. Hovering in the background at all times is the coarse, vulgar Fascist henchman Manganiello, a swarthy brute, who is there to see that Marcello does not lose courage and chicken out of his assignment. He says in true Nazi style that he hates cowards, homosexuals and Jews.

The camera is always lyrical and the set pieces beautifully choreographed, as this amazingly dense movie moves on to the end of Mussolini's tyranny and a final sequence, where Marcello finds himself faced with the reality that his memory of the events of his childhood were false, and his mental structure that he had created to deal with the trauma, {that is his identification with authority and normality} were all illusion and delusion. The realization that he had ruined his destiny and his life drives him over the edge.

Wow, what a movie, on so many levels and so influential {one immediately thinks of The Godfather} I, personally was stunned by the experience.

This movie forms a trilogy with the earlier "Exterminating Angel" and the later "Phantom of Liberty". They are all concerned with that stereotypically "modern man" termed the "bourgeoisie". How does Bunuel characterize this social phenomenon in this movie? Surprisingly, not as harshly as he does in the other two movies of the trilogy.

The Discreet Charm does not have a prologue {as in the other two in this trilogy} but opens up with the two couples arriving in a chauffeur driven limousine. The VIP whose vehicle it is , is the ambassador for the fictional Latin American state of "Miranda" {in Spanish this name denotes "admirable" and here Bunuel's cynicism is clear}. The ambassador is corrupt, and like many Colombian diplomats of the time, was using his supposed "diplomatic immunity" to smuggle cocaine into France. The other two French citizens are his accomplices. They do not use the drug themselves but instead liberally dose themselves with the legally acceptable bourgeois drug "alcohol"

In a series of humorous and teasingly droll sketches, Bunuel illustrates how these corrupt men and their colluding female partners act out their empty lives of hypocrisy and deceit.. There class snobbery is clearly demonstrated,when the Bishop dressed as a gardener is evicted from the house, but on reentering in his official clerical costume, he is immediately embraced. The bourgeois, always insecure about their own position in society, are always making presumptuous judgments about the social positions of other people, making their lack of substance obvious. Throughout the movie, the continual lack of social concern in their relationships, as emotionally connected human beings, is made clear. The metaphor of "breaking bread together", one of the most intimate of human experiences, is continually subverted by rampant egotism and selfish desires.

The scene when Bunuel has the dining table become a stage with a prompter giving them their lines, {as in Shakespeare's As You Like It "All the worlds a stage, and all the men and women merely players'}, is a brilliant confirmation of the emptiness of the bourgeois existence - simply stunning in its honesty {and so opposed to their inherent dishonesty}.

Other facets of the devious nature, of the bourgeois personality, pursued by Bunuel in this movie, are the paranoid dream and thought constructions, used to resolve problems {a pernicious form of dishonesty} and the recurrent theme of the six bourgeois characters walking on the open road - "The Road to Nowhere".

Bunuel devoted three whole movies to unmasking this scourge of human greed and existential poverty. The Surrealist program saw a revolution in human society as a prerequisite of a better world for all. Bunuel remained true to this creed throughout his artistic life.

This movie is funny and entertaining. I can think of no greater compliment to give it.

Surrealism has amongst its artistic goals, a revolutionary destruction of the social forms that stand in the way of the "creative", and instead, are moribund in their repetitive rigidity. The arch villain in Bunuel's Book of Social Crimes is the exploitative institution of the bourgeois. This, ruling class, is held in contempt in most of Bunuel's films, but most notably in this movie.

The movie opens with a Catholic Cathedral, funereal music, and sheep as the congregation. Bunuel's bourgeois are Catholic adherents of Karl Marx's "Opium of the People" {his description of the role of religion in society}.

The scene then shifts to a plutocratic mansion, where a gathering of the rich and cultured is to take place, in which one of the most holy sacraments of bourgeois society is about to begin. The social ritual in which assorted bourgeois people sit at a large banquet table and are plied with different courses of elegantly prepared food by foot servants, which had been anxiously and expertly prepared by the chef and his kitchen staff.

Bunuel alerts us {the viewers} early as to the incipient chaos to follow by having the kitchen staff abandon their conventional order of events by unpredictably walking off the job. This strange/peculiar juxtaposition of that which is predictable sets the stage for the arrival of the Exterminating Angel, whom we never see physically, but are made aware of as the movie progresses.

The evening progresses as the depleted staff serves dinner to the narcissists gathered at the table. The central theme in this movie is reached when Bunuel applies a primitive form of magic and superstition to the apparently "modern man", represented at the bourgeois dinner party. This tradition often described in Frazier's "The Golden Bough" is the drawing of a circle around a primitive victim by a shaman from which there is no escape. The victim will not, {because of fear and superstition}, step across the line and break the circle. The result is a lingering death paralyzed within the chalked circle.

At the end of the dinner, and after pleasantries and some cultivated appreciation of classical piano playing, the invisible circle is chalked at the exit to the dining-room leaving the assorted guests unable to perform the act of taking their leave and departing.

Here you have the central issue of the film, as the bourgeois guests descend into a nightmarish hell of inertia, apathy and utter lack of resourcefulness, so that the typical bourgeois traits of herd-like conformity, self interest and alienation become stumbling blocks to the simple human capacity to act. No action is possible as the vile, dark side of the inner bourgeois personality is slowly revealed. They sleep, they dream, {often surrealistically}, they harbour murderous resentment {as scapegoats for their dilemma are sought}. Everything is in stasis, nothing can break the spell { a magic ritual with chicken legs is attempted, but fails}. People die, lovers commit suicide, sheep {the lamb of God?} are eaten as civilization, of which the human social phenomenon of the bourgeois can be considered to be its apex, crumbles back into the cesspool of primal soup from which it developed.

The spell is eventually broken when one of the guests remembers the alchemical and ancient magical practice of reenacting the events that led up to the circle being drawn but then changing its chain of magical order by leaving, {like an automaton}, at the usual time and manner

The movie then reverts back to the prologue with the sheep entering the Cathedral, in order to worship. An utterly amazing movie!!

This movie is reputedly an autobiographical fictionalization of Fassbinder's own "menage" between himself, his lover, and his secretary. While the homosexuality is retained the gender is transformed to female.

Petra von Kant, is, like Fassbinder a product of upper middle class circumstances. She is artistic and ambitious. She is a rising force in the German Fashion "couture" and the movie opens with a bibulous Petra waking up late, and behaving in a superior and demanding manner towards her submissive and obedient secretary/design assistant/maid, the long suffering Marlene. Petra's selfish and narcissistic character is thus immediately established. The viewer is left in no doubt concerning her sybaritic, pampered demanding nature.

The next scene features a visit from her friend the Baroness Sidonie, whom she hasn't seen in years. The talk is focused on Petra,s failed marriage and Sidonie's curiosity about the underlying reasons for its failure. Petra claims that her husband resented her success and could not chauvinistically come to terms with her financial dominance. At no time does she refer to sexual orientation and gender preference as factors.

Enter the Baroness's young and beautiful friend Karin. Immediately Petra becomes interested and seductively attracted towards her. In classic bourgeois style, she flatters and tempts the impoverished Karin with her wealth and connections {"I'll make you my model"}. Karin, a heterosexual embraces bisexuality and embarks on an affair with Petra.In the background throughout the entire movie Poussin's "Midas and Bacchus" reproduced as a backdrop against an entire wall looms symbolically over the unfolding drama.

We are now moved on in time. Petra is now hopelessly infatuated with Karin, who, although she is affectionate towards Petra, her heterosexuality precludes her reciprocating. What Petra desires is a grand passion, which,like a moth being drawn to a flame is then consumed by it. The requited love that Petra insists upon, remains unsatisfied. The situation comes to a head when Karin's husband returns and Karin walks out of her relationship with Petra and rejoins him.

We now have the core of this tale as Petra fragments in agonistic convulsion. A fantastic sequence of humiliation and degradation, emotionally convincing, is magnificently pulled off by Margarit Carstensen who plays Petra and also by Fassbinder's tight direction. The scene takes place on a shaggy long piled white carpet,{fashionable in the 70's} a bare room and the backdrop painting. An utterly masterful and absorbing display of emotion at the edge. Phew, what an affective scene, leaving the viewer quite exhausted. After the catharsis of all the "descent into hell", Petra recovers, seemingly cured of the "mad love", and supposedly, through the pain and suffering, she now offers her long suffering slave cum assistant, a new relationship - her freedom from servitude, and from now on a partnership of equality. This political resolution was taken by this particular viewer {that is, myself} with a pinch of salt, as I find it highly optimistic on Fassbinder's part, that Petra would so easily embrace a new persona

There is very little action in this movie but the authenticity is riveting. Sure, it's an Art Movie, stagey, with the dialogue telling most of the story, but it's a great movie nevertheless.

This movie is the most closely aligned to Surrealist Manifestos, of all Bunuel's body of work. It's title is the most important element of the modern revolutionary epoch. Freedom being the essential chant of desire to the Bastille stormers of the Parisian movement in 1789. Bunuel's opening scene is the display and then animation of one of Goya's "Atrocities of War" series. The irony being that Napoleon's revolutionary armies brought a charter of Freedom to Spain by the massacre of the Spanish Nobility and leaving the Spanish peasants with no security and lethal repression and a Constitution which declared them to be free. Here, immediately the fugitive nature of freedom is illustrated. Before continuing it might be worth examining what , according to the Surreealists the positive and negative results of the French Revolution are; first of all, the creative impulse of change, and added to this, other movements for change such as Freud's "Interpretation of Dreams" offered a channel into enigmatic areas of existence like dreams. However the single most important result of the Revolution was the birth of a new class, which would supersede the old classifications and leave Humanity with only one class of citizen - THE BOURGEOIS!

Bunuel's critique and analysis of this progressive and thoroughly modern phenomenon is present in most, if not all, his Cinema. The story segues into modern times as we focus on a random bourgeois family. He, an entomologist whose daughters are approached in a park, by a man in a raincoat, who offers them sweets in classic pederast fashion, and then hands them a packet of picture postcards. The parents are disgusted by the pre-revolutionary pictures of Cathedrals and antique buildings. The only picture they approve of is a modern eyesore, - a concrete parking lot. The father figure is troubled by dreams, so much so, that he consults with a medical practitioner, who advises Psychoanalysis, as "they will listen to your dreams for years".

The next sketch involves a visit to a boarding-house where Bunuel in quick succession has a flamenco dancing sequence, monks that are decadent and a dominatrix in full leather uniform whipping a mad hatter in "easy access, buttocks exposing trousers".

The viewer is now put through a truly Monty Pythonesque scene where a professor is instructing a class of policeman concerning the relativity of culture {he recommends reading Margaret Mead}. The professor then attends Bunuel's favorite ceremony in the Rites of Bourgeois Culture - the dinner party. The viewer is left in no doubt about Bunuel's opinion of the highest and most sacred of bourgeois conventions, the social dinner. The seating is a toilet bowl and the conversation concerns the overwhelming amount of waste each individual excretes - thus making the human being the culprit for the major volume of pollutant on our Planet.

Bunuel then leads us into the quintessential failing of the bourgeois - artificiality, and loss of contact with their irrational/dream/emotional life, {Surrealism's font of creativity and sensitivity} when he offers us a sketch of how these conventions so cripple the natural ability of the human to have consistent identities {as their snobbish insecurities continually undermine the obvious and sane}.

The final metaphor is the zoo where Bunuel obviously felt that our fellow mammals have more integrity and honesty than the human type, without whose presence the zoo would have no meaning at all.

This movie is rich with allusion, dense with incident, faithful to Surrealist theory, redolent with all their paradox, irony and jokes. It all makes sense if you want it to. I certainly enjoyed it.

Satirical to the core, this movie is interesting in its realistic illustration of post-war small time corruption. Fassbinder has an extraordinary light touch, and it is a fascinating ride through the endemic connivance's of the petit-bourgeois wheeler-dealers of a small German city. One can actually hear Fassbinder giggling in the background as he brings the universal character of the average conformist-hustler to the screen.

Barbara Sukowa as Lola, is a magnificent actress, especially where she accepts the humiliations of her life, but will not allow them to transform her into the brutalized animal level of behavior, that she observes all around her. Always optimistic, she pursues her goal {to escape from the prison of degradation, she is in}. We, {the viewers}, follow her journey, as she overcomes obstacle after obstacle, to eventually triumph, and take her place as a citizen of her particular Peyton Place.

How she does it is colorful and informative. Fassbinder gives you all the different strata of class prejudice, as the money men are in cahoots with the bureaucrats, who are all, in turn, driven by libidinal desires. Mixing up cabaret elements, together with the controlling power of money, blended in with, the huge heart of those that earn their crust as sex workers {this, is so obviously where Fassbinder's sympathies lie}. Fassbinder has used high cinematic values in this movie, where all the characters, {ultimately}, believe that "Cash is King". Kitsch is displayed with the usual Fassbinder panache and as with many other movie portrayals of prostitution, the more sordid side, such as violence and intimidation, and the risk to health, are not mentioned, giving the otherwise sharp satire of the corrupt financial world, a rather fairy tale gloss.

Fassbinder, who always understood the paramount need to entertain, still manages to convey the malaise, that the aftermath of the Nazi demolition of all moral standards, which had left an entire nation bereft of a natural ethos of right and wrong. Fassbinder gives you entertainment and awareness, a difficult tightrope to straddle.

Fassbinder, like Diogenes, was always in search of an honest man. He had a celebratory attitude to life, and his mirth is infectious.

Another Surrealist satire from the comic eye of the Surrealist master. This one a work of a 76 year old. However, its fresh and alive, with a teasing, warm attitude that will give it, {I predict}, an eternal duration.

What are the bourgeois up to this time? Well, the lead male Don Mateo, is having dinner at a friends {as the bourgeois often do} when, lo and behold, a perfectly charming and quite delectable young chambermaid fills his glass with wine {"the wrong glass, silly girl"}. Don Mateo takes one look at this fetching young wench and the most basic instincts instantly take hold of him. He decides at that moment he must have sexual intercourse with this member of the opposite sex. As the old adage goes "it takes two to tango" she, {she answers to Conchita}, is not ready to dance. "Whoa", she says and pushes him away. As with many men who understand their class advantages as a given, Don Mateo knows that he has something that adorable, sweet, sexy, Conchita badly needs - MONEY!! Conchita is no fool and her mother and the nuns who educated her have warned her, about being on her guard with men, who have their dastardly way, use her as a sexual convenience, and then go on to the next young sex conquest, She plays her cards close to her chest, and while keeping Don Mateo's libido flirtatiously in a state of excited anticipation, she leads him on a merry dance. The name of this dance is "That Obscure Object of Desire", its 103 minutes long and its delightful to watch.

The scene where she goes with him to his country house promising to deliver the goods, and then climbs into bed wearing a chastity belt, had me in hysterics {and that's rare for me}. The movie is full of teasing, surreal jokes, and the absurd conventions of the bourgeois conformist life-style, are magically presented.

Bunuel beautifully illustrates the "dance" metaphor by making Conchita a Flamenco dancer { a dance of passion and love} and then surrealistically turns the convention on its head, by showing her moonlighting as a nude flamenco dancer to earn some extra cash. {"Luis, Breton would have been proud of you if he had lived to see that scene"}.

Anyway, this delightful entertainment goes through umpteen twists and shifts, all maniacally clever, until the curtain comes down Unlike Hollywood endings both characters retain their integrity {no depressing capitulation of will here}.

What an "up" this movie is, and so intelligent. Don't waste your time watching the same old false story that Hollywood dishes out over and over again - watch this instead, you'll love it!

Although this movie concerns itself with one of the paramount taboos, its evocative intensity is kept quite impassive. Perhaps the intention is to allow the viewer the freedom of choice: to either accept consciously, the facts of life, with all its "red in tooth and claw" aspects, {a form of realism}, or to resist the blind, impulsive irrationality of sado- masochistic gratification with all its pathological undertones.

Kieslowski divides his tale into three main parts - the first part introduces the three main characters - the candidate advocate who is being examined by the Board for his Bar entrance - we are introduced to a man of a sensitive nature, thoughtful and unconvinced after four years of practice that punishment is a deterrent {although he concedes that it might be a deterrent ,or at least intimidatory to those for whom crime is not a natural calling}. He offers a reference from Genesis stating that the threat of punishment did not deter Cain from murdering Abel. The next character is a youth who walks aimlessly looking at cinema posters, amusing himself in rebellious and anti-social ways. The third character is a taxi driver who is seen cleaning and shining his car. Kieslowski has given him a rather disagreeable personality.

The second part of the movie has the three main characters slowly and inexorably moving towards each other so that the precise details of their intertwined destinies can be unfolded. The advocate is seen with his wife in the same coffee house as the punkish youth. The youth then randomly selects a taxi to drive him to a desolate country road where in a slowly enacted, drawn out scene, he garottes and bludgeons the taxi driver, who begs for mercy on behalf of his wife and children. The viewer is left in no doubt as to the horror of the act as the youth raises a large stone and smashes the victims head with it.

The movie then experiences a jump cut in editing as the capture and trial of the murderer are omitted and the thread of the story continues with the youth being found guilty. This causes the advocate to go through a soul searching period of whether his defence of the youth was competent. Kieslowski, finally allows the viewer biographical access to the life of the youth/murderer - this is the only part of the movie driven by emotional values as we learn of the tragedies in his life and his need to be reassured that at least in death he would be buried close to his father and sister whom he both obviously loved. This is a brilliant preparatory moment as the viewer is made conscious of this up -to-now abstract figure, who up to this point had elicited no sympathy at all. Now the viewer is jolted into consciousness as the humanity of the murderer transforms him back into a human being.

The third part of the movie - the final curtain, is the carrying out of the death penalty.Unlike Hollywood, where as in "Dead Man Walking", Sean Penn is shown walking to his doom still embracing his pride - Kieslowski depicts the taking of life, first, with the murder of the taxi driver in a long protracted scene, and then with the Judicial murder, a heart wrenching display of fear and struggle leaving the viewer feeling personally assaulted and gut-wrenched {at least that's how I felt}.

Only a master of the practice of art could have pulled this off. When one thinks of what to reference this movie to, other movies don't come to mind. Rather one has to look at literature {as I'm sure Kieslowski did}. Dostoevsky's "Crime and Punishment" and Musil's "The Man Without Qualities" spring to mind. I take the fact that this movie is to be compared with major works of literary art to be high praise indeed

If you want more than pulp movies then this philosophical discourse on the nature of life and death will leave you somehow enhanced and certainly more aware. Highly recommended.

Because the themes and purview of this "work of art" are so visceral, so articulate, the imagination is not allowed much leeway. Does this film have several different meanings, say as allegory, or as a fable or even esoteric? No, the only meaning, I can discern, is literal. This is a movie driven by anger and revenge. Pasolini, had illustrated the "Decameron" like a renaissance Master in a painterly fashion. He then went on to make a slightly ludicrous Italianate "Canterbury Tales" {still amazingly beautiful}. Then, we get a shift of reference with Salo, where Bunuel's satirical style is appropriated by Pasolini and the culture of the bourgeoisie is brought under the spotlight. The text illustrated is the preparatory draft of 120 Days in Sodom by the pre- revolutionary aristocrat De Sade

De Sade wished to portray the orgiastic rites of the Pagan past with Decadent drollery and amuse himself in the confines of imprisonment in the Bastille with a teasing tale of the life of a man who is both free of legal obstruction and has the power to enslave victims in a pathological and brutal fashion. Pasolini, was well aware of the Danteesque depths that the Fascist/Nazi revolution had wreaked on the World Moral Order. He was ardently anti-Nazi and saw the corruption that absolute power had engendered in Mussolini's Italian version of the Nazi movement, centered at Salo, {Mussolini's HQ}.

It is not possible to believe with Pasolini that this aberrant behaviour was more closely bound up with Fascism than his beloved Communism {one has to reflect on the Gulags for that premise to evaporate}. Pasolini gives his story an Italian twist by evoking the Renaissance's proto-document, "Dante's Inferno". He breaks the film up into the "Journey through Hell", that Dante describes as circles through which the condemned travail.

What, of this distressing movie, where pleasure is distorted and perverted, so that the natural expectation of emotional catharsis is transformed into a form of corruption, ritual humiliations, repetitive torture, which appeals to a small minority of decadent and bored frigid cyphers, {symbols of power}. These men represent the aristocracy, the Church, the legal system and plutocracy. The stimulation of these powers, becomes more difficult, as the sex drive is transformed, into an opera of humiliations, and the infliction of sadistic enjoyment , as the novel experience is sought, in an exhausted cul de sac of isolated gratification. The question then revolves around, "why did Pasolini make this movie?" What purpose could it serve?

The tempo is unrelenting, as the fear and menace are intensified without any relief. The viewer has to be fit and alert, to give this movie its satirical edge. This abstraction, similar to Bunuel's approach, is necessary, in order to consider, the conservative lifestyles on display and the effect this has on a "queering" of the outlook on life. Pasolini proposes that the only emotions the protagonists possess is a defensive armouring against any feeling at all. The result, is the turning on its head, of the simple pleasures and the value of pain becomes paramount.

Everybody has a scene in the movie that epitomizes the most degraded evocation, in the history of story-telling. The scene that I thought was amazing, because it was a parody of one of the most commonplace scenarios in cinema - the romantic embrace - after the coprophagic wedding - where the couple embrace, he breathes heavily into her face. Both of their lips are covered in brown excrement. He says to her {lovingly}, "I love the smell of sh*t", they then kiss each other deeply and passionately.

The vagina as an erogenous zone is downgraded in this work, the rectum taking premier position. "The Adoration of the Anus", is clearly symbolized. The beauty of the buttocks is stressed ad infinitum, {a penchant of De Sade}.

This is an angry piece of art. Pasolini gives you human degradation that only the human animal is capable of. The capacity to be cruel is enhanced by the instruments of power. I learned nothing from this movie, except the awesome fact, that it is the swansong of a great artist, who lived a daring life, and died a reckless death. Pasolini's artistic power gives a sense of poetry to the life of perversion and sordid bestiality that is so extreme, that like some of Bunuels oeuvre, it will never be repeated. A nightmare played as opera, high screen values, well realized. An antidote to every "feel good" movie ever made. It is a cautionary tale, in the sense that the viewer is forced to be both abstract, and to take the human potential to perpetrate revolting acts, in a serious light. That must be Pasolini's reason for writing and directing this "warning" to humanity.

In the early 60's, when Burgess wrote the novel, one of the controversies in the realm of psychology was the popularity among academics of the Behaviourist approach of B. F. Skinner. Skinner had evolved his scientific approach directly from Pavlov and his demonstration of how dogs could be made to repeat responses to stimuli in a predictable manner {"classical conditioning"}. Skinner developed this theory applying it to human behaviour as "conditioned response". Skinner was so confident that his approach was the way of the future that he wrote an utopian novel called "Walden 2", as a riposte to Thoureau's transcendalist novel, {"Walden"}, of a life of bucolic fulfillment. In Skinner's novel society would be in the morally superior hands of apparatchiks that he termed "planner-managers" Behaviour would thus be regulated by the state by the use of conditioning technique. Anthony Burgess was obviously well aware of the threat to human freedom that Psychiatry and psychology posed and set out to write a novel where the absurdities of control obsession/mania would be exposed.

Kubrick made a highly coloured rendition of the life of the young miscreant Alex, {magnetically portrayed by Malcolm McDowell} and his band of teenage rebels who dress in a group fashion, speak in a personal argot, get juiced on drug-laden milk and whisky, steal cars, use weapons and engage in anti-social behaviour which includes rape, burglary, and grievous bodily harm. In Burgess's fictional world , you have here a supreme character for behavioral modification.

Alex is eventually betrayed by his comrades-in-arms and is convicted for murder and enters the State Prison for a period of nine years. There, because of the overcrowding, and the need to make space for the more threatening category of "political prisoner" - Alex is offered the satirical option of a 14 day quick non-surgical lobotomy, termed "aversion therapy". It is important, at this point, to point out the one unexpected anomaly of this young rebel, Alex. Although Alex is revealed to have no respect for pedantry and culture {in the novel he destroys books with the utmost contempt}, in any shape or form, he has an abiding worship and love for the abstractions of classical music {a form of higher culture}, This characteristic is something he shares with his creator, Anthony Burgess and also the auteur, Stanley Kubrick. Why it is plausible, that such a rabid prole and anti-elitist as Alex surely is, - would be disarmed by the abstract formulations and precious classism of Ludwig von Beethoven, {while also displaying a total disdain for popular music}, is one of those mysterious elements of good fiction and good cinema. Alex, then becomes a pawn in the political game of the "politics of the Future" eventually pronouncing himself "cured" and according to the film {though not according to the original novel}, ready to continue with a life of mayhem and ultra-violence.

That this movie tells a yarn which is both entertaining and challenging, is without question, the result of a collaboration of a great writer and a great movie maker. It is rare to see a novel so precisely realized as this screen adaptation. Voila!!

This is a piece of cinema history. Fritz Lang, has left an impressive record of his genius and love of the cinematic art form. In this particular work we are taken on a journey of exploration, touching on some of Lang's big themes, {which are often repeated in his cinematic "body of work"}.

A perverse,{from a pathological view-point} or evil, {from a moral view- point}, force is at work in a Dusseldorf precinct of 80 years ago. The viewer is led through a beautifully wrought cinematography with insane camera angles {the camera is definitely a player in this movie}, as the fear and paranoia of one of the most heinous forms of criminality is explored. The rape and murder of young girls by a serial killer.

Hans Beckett {played by the totally amazing actor Peter Lorre} is wreaking mayhem amongst the population as the townspeople become gripped with a mass hysteria fed by sensationalist broadsheets and the pull and tug of imaginary monsters.

The realism {a style pioneered by Lang in this film} is palpable and emphasized by the precise care for detail, that Lang delivers throughout. The tension is cast in a delineated incise clarity with all of the actors being finely portrayed by the master film-maker.

Apart from being a great yarn, suspense thriller, chase movie, detective/police drama, bohemian milieu expose, {this movie has something of every possible genre}, there is also the philosophical question of human morality that Lang raises {its ugly head?}.

What is to be done about the criminally insane? Are they different from the vocational criminal? In what way are they different? How should their punishment differ? How can society be protected from this category of miscreant? Should they be punished at all? Finally, apart from the aforementioned questions and other related questions, Lang poses the eternal conundrum "What can Mothers do to protect their children from these aberrants and their violent obsessions?" The final solution, Lang offers amounts to the admonition to "look after your children", in other words Lang is saying, "not very much can be done".

This is a dense movie, running the gamut of horror, and comedy, a mirror that is shone in your face and ultimately challenging the viewer to ask the primal question "exactly what is it, to be human?".

Holly Golightly, the protagonist, in the short novella, by Truman Capote is a one-off. The story is narrated by the writer who, while living in an Eastside Manhattan brownstone and working in the writing field, meets Holly, and subsequently becomes enchanted by her non-conformist lifestyle.

As a "good-time-girl", Holly drinks and parties, and in the unsanitized novella she also smokes weed. The elements in her persona, that most attract Truman Capote, are her taste, wit ,charm, and beauty {Tiffanys have the most expensive, and presumably the most elegant jewellery}. Her three outfits designed by Givenchy become the fashion precursors for "more dash than cash" as Holly "mixes and matches", spawning a voguish 60's personalized style, of fashion/couture, self-expression.

In the movie, the viewer is introduced to the Holly character, as she returns to her apartment, early in the morning. After,having first gazed yearningly through the window, of her own personal consumer Heaven, Tiffanys. She arrives at her front-door, and then her nightly ritual of having lost her front door key, begins. Holly, in flagrant disregard for her fellow neighbours, wakes up the Japanese photographer, Mr. Yunioshi {played for laughs by Mickey Rooney}. Mr. Yunioshi is enraged, {as anyone would be}, but Holly disarms him with her charmingly apologetic manner, and silences him with a promise to do those "photographs" he had solicited. We also find out that Holly's technique for earning a crust, is being a bar room escort to lonely rich men, who tip her generously.

The movie is all about Holly, perfectly illustrated by Audrey Hepburn, her dreams,her biography and her desires.It turns out, that like Truman Capote's own mother, she was a child-bride from the South, who came to New York looking to hook and land a wealthy husband. Thus enabling her to gratify herself in the Sylvian Fields of the jewellery retailer, Tiffanys. The satirical exaggeration of the novella caused Norman Mailer, the writer, to comment "I would not change a word, its perfect!".

The party scene is well choreographed, {Blake Edwards went on to do the Pink Panther series and the hilarious, The Party}. In the dialogue, Fred, the writer and narrator, {played by the young hunk, George Peppard}, is informed by Holly's Hollywood agent, O.J.Berman {Martin Balsam}, that in his world, there are only phonies, {a redolently 50's term}, but, that Holly is not a phony, but a "Real Phony" because she actually "believes all this stuff". We are also informed by O.J., that Holly was sent to finishing school, where she picked up a better accent, and the ability to colour her speech with French colloquialisms. Holly also had a penchant for calling heavy set woman, who stood in her way, "bull-dykes".

After Doc Golightly arrives, and "outed" Holly as Lullamae Barnes "a hick from the sticks". Holly is distressed by his visit and is portrayed as vulnerable. She expresses her personal philosophy as wild {not regulated} and the idea that it is "better to travel than to arrive" lends itself, to her quest, not to have her freedom curtailed - in essence a thoroughly modern woman. She has not dated, unlike the rest of the cast.

Finally, I should mention that total scene-stealer the cat, who took all the attention away from the human actors, every time he appeared on screen - what a performance - {apparently played by 9 different cats!}

The Hollywood betrayal {that's how the artist Truman Capote put it}, takes place at the climax of the story where the movie refuses to acknowledge the Female Will, instead giving Holly the typical "good feeling" capitulation of her indomitable will to this rather dour and hardly witty hunk {Peppard}. I found this totally implausible, he would have bored her to death. It is a total contradiction of Capote's vision of the post-modern woman, {independent, free, unchained and of course, camp and witty}.

The movie {criticisms withstanding} still exudes charm - the Holly character is light and dizzy, giving her a fairy tale air of nonchalance and mischievous, nose-crinkling, impishness. Sophisticated, entertaining, satirical comedy.

I am a great fan of both Kinski {the leading man} and Herzog {the movie director} and know most of their joint collaborations well. I have always loved Kinski's alien appearance and this documentary is layered on so many levels, that even if the viewer is unaware of the movies that are illustrated, such as Aguirre, Nosferatu, Fitzcarraldo, Woyzeck and Cobra Verde, you are still, {if interested in the process of movie- making}, given insight into the intimate workings of a great artistic director, and the Herculean tasks Herzog embarked on in the Amazonian jungle, choosing as his leading man a character whom he had had a serendipitous childhood experience of.

Herzog, because of the indigent nature of his family circumstances had found himself at 13 years old sharing lodgings in a bohemian boarding house with Klaus Kinski for a period of three months in 1955. In this time the eccentricities of this aspirant actor cum autodidact, made such an indelible impression on him, that 16 years later while casting around for a lead man for his Aguirre project, and looking for an actor who had a maniacal intensity, an adventurer's fearlessness and an out of this world conviction, recalled the lunatic, who would scream incessantly, break everything in sight and treat their joint landlady, {who had taken Kinski in as a patroness of the arts}, with the utmost contempt and with no regard at all for her charitable gestures. Kinski who was her freeloading guest would scream at her "you sow, don't you know how to iron a shirt", smashing down the kitchen door and then locking himself in the bathroom for two days smashing everything. All this and Klara, the landlady, refused to even contemplate his eviction.

This, then became the inextricable bond that was to develop between one of the world's great movie-makers and one of the most intense leading actors ever seen on the screen. After the introductory contextual setting, Herzog discusses the making of all five films using movie clips, documentary footage shot while filming, interviews with leading ladies Claudia Cardinale and Eva Mattes, and various actors, assorted production people, shot after Kinski's ascent to Mars or Jupiter {wherever this Alien persona now resides, having passed from this earthly existence}.

The documentary has an emotional content lacking in most documentary exercises stemming from the intimacy of the relationship between the two men and Herzog's grief and bereavement at the loss of his principal muse. It is both touching and affecting for the viewer whom, as the documentary builds and gains momentum, feels the sorrow of bereavement that Herzog so personally presents.

What an amazing document for the archaeologists of the Future to ponder, wonder, and be amazed by. If you're interested in life and its wonders this portrait of a symbiotic dependency will be of immense stimulation to you.

Ken Kesey was a legend of the 60's revolution - with his resident band The Grateful Dead and Neal Cassady {chief muse of the Beatniks} as his driver, he drove a bus across America and conducted Acid Tests all over the United States, leading to the psychedelic phase of the 60's revolution {1965 to 1969}.

A few years earlier, Kesey volunteered for a government experiment with the psychotropic hallucinogenic LSD, which he took frequently, over the course of eight months. Later in 1963 he published "One Flew over the Cuckoo's Nest".

The movie is a bowdlerized version of Kesey's novel, which simplifies the intellectual elements in the novel. Hence, the 60's concerns with the nature of insanity are reduced to a simple conflict of wills. The radical psychiatry of the existential school around R.D.Laing, asked the question - "Is insanity merely a sane response to an insane world?" Thomas Szasz wrote "The Myth of Mental Illness" and Wilhelm Reich described psychiatrists {Soul Doctors} as "The State Mental Police"

The Hollywoodization of this novel, led to the excision of the Native American Indian point of view, which changed the story from one that wished to explore the state of the "soul" in America to a meditation on Mental Health Institutions. Kesey most certainly identified with the Native American "peyote cults", and their Dream Dances and visions, by narrating his tale through the voice of the Native American Chief Bromden {not used in the movie screenplay}.

This then becomes the proto-psychedelic aspect of the story. Jack Nicholson plays the Ken Kesey character, a Dionysian spirit without reference to Native American Nature Religion, with its pantheistic world-view. The "control mania", which Nurse Ratched symbolizes, is not contrasted with the reverence that the Native American's held towards all of Creation.

So, having removed the Jungian dimension from the adaptation of the novel, what was left? A sadistic, cold, malevolent Nurse Ratched {to ratched up can mean to increase the pressure of control}. She symbolizes all of those people who are addicted to this form of behavioral interaction {the reactionary in society}. MacMurphy {Jack Nicholson} storms through a portrait of a hard-drinking, hard-playing, hard-sexing, hard living young blue collar type {one is made aware of Nicholson's Irish roots in this whirlwind of a performance}. Dr. Spivey has his surname cognate with "spiv" meaning "worthless". He, like all the actors in the movie act their hearts out and are all thoroughly convincing. Charley Cheswick {played by Sydney Lassick} was imperious and Danny DeVito as Martini was utterly plausible and on and on {the acting is magnificent}. This is why I recommend this movie, primarily for the intensity of the acting.

I hugely enjoyed the sea outing and thought this comic element gave the movie tragi-comic momentum {the basketball scene was also hysterically funny}.

Ken Kesey refused to ever view this exploitation of his literary art, although in an ironic world I'm sure people will continue to read his novel because of the movie.

This was Fellini's eighth feature. My theory, is that he felt, that this movie, {81/2}, represented one and a half movies, hence the title. Fellini had been undergoing psychoanalysis, both out of intellectual curiosity and as a relief from bouts of depression, - by both Freudian and Jungian analysts. Accordingly, the themes and motifs, that are explored in this movie, are typical of the analysand's world. First, unsurprisingly, you have childhood memories, the culture of the family, schooling, religion, and the meaning of dreams - with all of this history interpreted as a text from which the sex drive and the general capacity, to gain meaning and satisfaction, from one's life, is revealed.

Presumably, Fellini was not satisfied by the prospect of repeating La Dolce Vita {1959}, which was his first international success. Like Heraclitus, Fellini did not want to repeat himself.

The central idea, as the lead character {Guido aka the "director"}, reveals, is that a huge set had been built on the sandy beach, towering 200 meters high, which was referred to as the launch-pad. We, {the viewers}, are advised that as the set is already under construction, this part of the story has been settled on. The launch-pad, will house a spaceship, that will transport the survivors of a radioactive, nuclear catastrophe. The survivors, are fleeing from Earth, to another planet. Guido has come to the date where shooting is to begin.

Fellini, then introduces us to the "writer/ critic" character, whom the "director" has hired in order to be his conscience, or in more Freudian terms his "superego". The "director" asks him to read the script and comment on both the authenticity, and the minimum requirements, of a movie, that will not be seen as another false witness, to the facts of wonder, and the miracle of human existence. "How can I help" protests the "critic". "Yes you can, I have put off the start for two weeks", says the "director"

The "critic" returns a few scenes later, having read the screenplay - he hands the "director" some notes. He critiques the movie as follows: "...a lack of a central issue, or a philosophical stance, ...a chain of gratuitous episodes,...ambivalent realism, ...a lack of poetic inspiration, ...the camera {cinema} is 50 years behind other art forms, ...it lacks avant-garde merits but has all its shortcomings". The "director" starts to read from the notes, ..."and the fanciful apparition of the girl at the spring, what does it mean? - an offering of pureness and warmth - of all the symbols that abound in your story, this one is the worst". The "director" throws the notes down in disgust but immediately retrieves them from the ground with an intense gaze.

The "critic" reappears after the "Saraghina" scene, where the Catholic culture of Guido's childhood, is highlighted by an incident, with the whorishly portrayed woman, dancing for the sexually repressed young Catholic pupils at the teaching seminary. The rumba, {fantastically executed by actress Edra Gale, with music by Nino Rota}, leads to a Buster Keaton chase scene, after which, he is chastised in front of his mother, and made to take confession. Guido is firmly told, that sexuality is diabolical. The "critic" comments "...what does it mean? ...she's a character from your childhood memories, ...she has nothing to do with critical awareness, ...if you want to do something controversial on the Catholic consciousness, ...place yourself on a higher cultural level, apply lucid logic,...not these memories steeped in nostalgia, ...that make you an accomplice".

Later the "critic" states "your task is impossible ....to give clear cut features to a crowd of characters ...so sketchy, hazy, non-existent. Guido/Fellini echoes this, when he boasts to Rossella, his wife's best friend, "everything happens in my film - I try to put everything in".

In the final denouement with the "critic", Guido is quoted from Stendhal "...the solitary ego, that revolves around itself, ends up choked by tears and by laughter". The "director" then, solemnly places a mask over the "critics" head, and has him lead off and hanged - this is a great scene in the movie. The next scene, shows the "critic" still alive, and occupying his seat.

The final scene featuring the "critic", comes as Guido, the "director", cancels the movie, whereupon the "critic" launches into a long monologue: " ...we intellectuals have to be rational to the bitter end ..... there's no point in adding muddle to muddle...we're stifled by words, images, sounds ...an Artist, who is worthy of the name ... should train himself to silence ...remember Rimbaud's decision to give up writing ...perfection is impossible ...it is the true mission of the critic, to sweep away the countless still-births, ...you are like the lame man that leaves his deformed footprint, ...what monstrous presumption ...your squalid catalogue of mistakes ...why should you care about stitching together shreds of your life, ... vague memories, ...and faces of people you were never capable of loving".

I'd like to comment on a particularly moving scene in the graveyard with Guido and his dead father {"we never spoke enough"}, when the "producer" {referred to throughout as the "commander"}, enters. The father asks him whether his son Guido is a "good boy". The "commander" says he doesn't think so - Guido's father then re-enters the Underworld through a hole in the ground - I found this Jungian scene very touching.

In conclusion, I would like to say, that the influence this movie has had on the modern movie is ubiquitous. Some movies not usually mentioned in the long list of mainstream movies, usually cited, are Dennis Hopper's, The Last Movie, Alexandro Jodorowski's, The Holy Mountain {see my review}, and Bob Dylan's, Renaldo and Clara {the full version}. I feel honoured to have been able to review this profound and entertaining work of Art.

On the one hand, you have a 1956 film noir, {the essential period of this genre}, with all the expectations that the aforementioned statement implies, fully realized. However, because this was the "Meister" Stanley Kubrick's first commercial success, {he was 28 years old and this was his third feature}, one can't simply review this movie as a genre staple, {which is then either a good example or bad example or neither here nor there}, within the accepted hard-boiled conventions.

One's expectations are always high, when sitting down and watching the title credits roll, for a Kubrick creation, {I know mine certainly are}. I expect more than a well told tale, cinematographically executed, in an awesome manner, with an interesting assemblage of cast, and camera angles, flashbacks, and period detail.

Psychologically, we are presented with a group of lost souls, who have decided that life and its vicissitudes, demand that they align themselves with Mammon {or if you like the Devil}. Sterling Hayden {reprising his role from "The Asphalt Jungle 1950, perhaps}, is an interesting lead, as his charisma is introverted, whereas most lead actors beam out at the audience. The daring and complex heist plan, offering its conspirators ,the "Big Prize" of loads of money, is standard fare for most crime thrillers. Remember this is a Kubrick movie, so the ride is punctuated by sub plot elements, that give the proceedings an edgy frisson, that most movies do not have.

Yes folks, these characters, that are the subjects of this tale are like Aesop, simply overwhelmed, by the expectation of a huge change in their material circumstances. To be blunt, they can't wait {especially as Kubrick masterfully ratchets up the pressure: debt, sordid dissatisfaction with the imprisonment of poverty, lack of choice, that the financial circumstances of these cinematic losers endure. They are teased to the point of despair by the "Messiah of Money" that will give them the relief that they dream constantly about. Kubrick brilliantly conveys a drooling anticipation of the "taste of money".

Kubrick, makes it clear that they are doomed, by merely observing the twists, conflicts and struggles, that anyone in these characters position would plausibly endure. What unfolds is not, however, the usual predictable outcome, but a refreshing finale, {still so in the year 2011}, which leaves the viewer surprised and entertained. This movie is a clear indicator of why Kubrick progressed from this point to movies like Lolita {see my review}, Clockwork Orange, The Shining and Eyes Wide Shut. If you are fascinated by the history of the "Cinema" and want to see all of Kubrick's oeuvre then this should definitely be joyfully experienced by you.

PS. This movie also heralds the entry of Jim Thompson {the novelist} into the field of cinema. Kubrick hired him to do the screenplay but only gave him the dialogue credit.

Nabakov was 56 years old when this novel was published. James Mason who is the Nabakovian character {Humbert Humbert} in the movie was 52 years old when the movie was made. The novel had great appeal for its human affinity with the ageing process and the resilience of youth. Humbert, a middle-aged aesthete. whom we are informed by the novel, has always had an irresistible attraction to the allure of young female flesh, finds himself drifting in his waning years in the backwoods of American College employment. Although, a hugely conscious observer of the human tableau, there is one aspect of his dreamy existence that he has no control over - that is his lust for young, pubescent proto-woman. The narrative arrives at a small mid-western town, where Humbert is to take up an academic position.

Here, we, {the audience}, encounters the Shelley Winters character and her daughter Sue Lyons {looking decidedly older than the 12 year old nymphet that the novel describes}. At this point, having moved in, {now,his testosterone has taken over, as the controlling power in his psyche}. We are made aware as to Humbert's initial aversion, which he has to the vulgarity and lack of couth, which the Shelley Winters character has on him. This is then contrasted, {and his intellectual prejudice is immediately dispelled} by the sight of the young Sue Lyon {Lolita} displaying herself in an unselfconsciously sensuous bikini. Humbert's immediate reaction is one of sexual erectness. This futile lust, is where this tale of thwarted desire, begins.

We, {the audience}, are also given insight into this lonely driven man's inner life, {that is other than his interest in literature and poetry}, by being made privy to his personal life in the confessorial entries to his diary. Here we learn that he despises his generous, hospitable hostess, and how he worships and adores the butterfly {at chrysalis stage}, the "darling" Lolita. The juxtaposition of his undying love with Lolita's facile curiosity, {Lolita views men as a continent to be explored and conquered}, combined with her presumed interest in her mother's suitor.

In the movie, the Peter Sellers character, Clare Quilty is given more weight than the novel, where he has a dark, sinister influence. He is Humbert's nemesis in a role, which allows Sellers to demonstrate his great facility with mimicry. We see the dissolution of all the dreams that Humbert has signaled throughout the movie.

Everything that Kubrick creates is enormously interesting. There is a fine intelligence at work here. He brought Nabakov on board to write the screenplay {thus giving the movie maximum authenticity}. Anybody who loves the "Cinema" should go out of his way to see Kubrick's contribution to the art form. "My darrhling Lolita".

Burrough's wrote Naked Lunch in the stream-of-consciousness style pioneered by James Joyce in Ulysses. Of course, the literary landscape of addiction, hallucination, satire, and free-fall make Burroughs's expedition into magical lands and foreign shores a totally different journey - and the prize sought - the writing of a novel, makes this saga a totally different quest to that of the Homeric. {although, they both culminated in a book}

David Cronenberg decided to write a screen treatment, of the farrago, that is assembled in a loose fashion, as the outcome of Burrough's intellectual monologue, with the confusion of thought, that the ingestion of the opiate variety of drugs, {primarily, heroin}, conjured up in his consciousness. This work became a cause celebre in the literary world of the early 1960's. I read the book twice in the mid- 60's and was amazed at its convincing evocation of its drug induced wakeful dreaminess, its homo-eroticism and its satirical humour. In the 60's, the 70's, the 80's it was rumoured that a movie was to be made of this extremely dense and tautological fictional work, but nothing appeared. Then 32 years after publication Cronenberg took the challenge and came forward with his version of Naked Lunch. He used the book as the point of departure - incorporating biography such as the tragic manslaughter of his wife and the friendship of Kerouac and Ginsberg.

The movie depicts the young Burroughs in 1953 shacking-up with his wife Joan in a cold water apartment somewhere in Manhattan. While he waited to develop as a writer, {his ambition}, he took a typical "Beat" job as a "cockroach exterminator". Beat employment, unlike, mainstream employment, was valued for its "lack of mental effort", leaving the mind free for the realization of the writing ambition and also Beat employment was valued for it's proletarian experience and solidarity.

"Junk" is a well chosen street name for heroin, mainly because with all the admixture that is used to extend its volume and therefore facilitate its availability. The junkie, {he who is addicted to this poisonous mix of benign and malign adulterants}, is always in peril from the "naked lunch lying on the end of his spoon" The Cronenberg conceit is that they shoot up pyrethium {cockroach poison} and get "bug high"

Dr, Benway one of the most important characters in the novel

• reflecting the dismissive power of the military-industrial complex and its cynical use of psychological control by means of state sanctioned pharmaceutical addiction - for example, drugs such as alcohol, tranquilizers, benzedrine etc.

After the death of his wife, Burroughs descends into a drugged vortex, taking him as a fugitive to Tangiers where his homosexual proclivities, and cheap drugs of all varieties, are made available, and realized by him. There is also an expatriate community which included Paul Bowles {Ian Holm, excellent} and his wife Joan Bowles, who were also aspirant writers. Burroughs descends into the maelstrom of dissolution and degradation - sex with beautiful Moroccan youths and some bisexual sex with the reincarnated image of his wife Joan {Judy Davis is truly excellent in this twin role}. There is much hallucination and transformation involving Burroughs's task-master "the Infernal Typewriter" which beautifully and masterfully mirrors his struggle to write. The paranoia is well developed by Cronenberg, as malign individuals, in this cesspool of human detritus, are transformed into chimaera's of insectivorous sex monsters.

Cronenberg has succeeded in his mission to bring a version of this novel to the screen that has the novelistic odyssey, of deranged articulacy, and perverted hypnotic vortices, that Burroughs offers his readership. Great Balls of Fire!!

When, Orwell wrote his morally questioning novel, he was prophesying 36 years into the future. Today 1984 is 27 years in the past. The Bible distinguishes between Prophets and false-Prophets by acknowledging the corroboration of the actual event predicted, as a God given power.

Orwell has with this , his last novel, added two separate words to the English language, that of "Orwellian" which evolved because the title of the novel, "1984" did not lend itself to idiomatic expression, as say "Catch 22" has done. What does "Orwellian" mean in the context of this novel {1984}. The dictionary offers "that which dehumanizes". The second word {actually, a phrase}, "Big Brother" is defined as "a dictator", or alternately as, " a powerful leader, or organization, regarded as ubiquitous and sinister".

What has made this movie so necessary to make is the influence of the book, {as a prophecy "1984" must be judged from the viewpoint of today {27 years since the prophesied date {1984 + 27 = 2011}. Orwell"s, prophetic status is as a true Prophet or a false Prophet? Exactly, which type of prophet is Orwell?

One is forced to consider the two most influential terms "dehumanization" and the "sinister and ubiquitous" power of "Big Brother". Has the ontological reality become less human with the social need for security? Is the social dynamic involving more scrutiny, more abdication of personal freedom or not? Is the ruling power manipulating the desires of the individual, by various forms of propaganda, - persuading masses of citizens to act in a regimented, uniform, colorless manner? When one looks around in 2011 this does ring true.

However, Orwell a religiously, devoted Socialist, would most probably feel {if he is watching from the firmament} that he was part of the tendency that militated against the fulfillment of his prophecy.

What of the movie itself? Well, John Hurt has the lead playing "Winston Smith" who could easily have been called "Alfred Glum" An interesting portrayal of the hang-dog look - he even looks glum after sex with Suzanna Hamilton {whom we see as a fetching nude}. Nothing can make Winston feel less glum. Winston knows that all "Thought is Crime" but his libidinal stirrings suppress his social obligations.

The propaganda aspect of the novel is very challenging - slogans such as "War is Peace", "Thought is Crime" and the menacing "Big Brother is watching you", combined with the use of repetition are standard advertising techniques. The assault on individuality and the problem of divergent subjective thoughts/desires/needs are viewed in a thorough and exhaustive investigatory manner in this movie.

Richard Burton offers us a last chance, {his last movie} to hear the mellifluous instrument of his voice. Well, its a bit of a strenuous journey, but if you want to explore George Orwell and his novel "1984", then this faithful rendition will certainly inform you of his calling!

I have given a high rating to this movie, not because it fulfills my criteria, of the metaphysical in the cinema, but more for its voyeuristic outré content. The viewer is not offered a fictional imaginative event, but, what comes across as a pseudo-documentary, slice-of-life, peek at the primitive, atavistic lifestyle of a Greek family. According to classical psychiatric theory this family, typically, would have had a long history, {through the generations}, of incest and other taboo practises.

In Truffaut's movie, The Wild Child, the narrator {a teacher} gives the viewer an overview, in which the primitive child is contextualized in terms of the process of civilizing evolution. However, in Dogtooth no explanation is proffered, as to why the family is not cultivated, in the ethos of the year 2011 {the norms and standards of behaviour in contemporary society}. Instead, what we are shown, is a look at the practical structure of incest. The modern audiences indoctrination in post-Freudian mores, gives the movie a "sick" fascination.

What, according to this story, are the casebook symptoms, which are evident in this antediluvian {caveman-like} family, living out their family drama in our day and age? Well, first you are introduced to the curse of the Tower of Babel, as the children are deliberately confused by the parents, {in the interest of control}, as to the meaning of certain words, that challenge their perverted values. There is much that is logically consistent with the "power mad hold", that the family dictator {the paterfamilias} exerts. He has an obsession with dog training, and feels that the techniques used to train dogs {ie. reward/punishment} should be applied to his family. As there have been many notorious crimes, which involve the abuse of family and children, none of this strikes one as implausible.

How does this psychiatric casebook unfold? There is much detail, {it is never boring}. One great memorable scene, involves the use of Frank Sinatra, on the phonograph, being translated by the paterfamilias, to his Greek speaking children, as a sermon of praise to himself. It is the continual, absurd detail, that raises this movie, out of a pointless exercise in voyeurism, of the psychologically and sexually bizarre. A theoretical "Journey into the worlds of R. D. Laing and Thomas Szasz" - that is, pathology, from the point of view of "the family" and "language", respectively.

In Lewis Carroll's, Alice in Wonderland, it is stated that "words are what I say they mean" and in this movie this is the unfolding essence of the control discipline. Male chauvinism is seemingly more culturally acceptable in Greece than other areas of the Western world - {I'm not sure about this}.

What can one say, about the look of this movie? The most striking aspect, is the use of unglamorous, but not unattractive, actors and actresses, and drab attire, which gives the movie a "home movie" feel, {it works well}, and gives its reality a more convincing aura. Yes, there is much to think about, in its pseudo-documentary feel. The camera's relentless view-point. Primarily, of the beastliness, of the primitive dramatis personae, in this psychiatrically referenced tragedy. Solely, with this in mind, I recommend this creation to potential viewers. The movie is full of incident, and holds one's attention throughout. The sexuality is explicit, and the fascination is real.