Reviews

Breakfast at Tiffany's is perhaps of the most enduring films of the 1960's. It owes that endurance one might think to the (somewhat whimsical) Weltschmerz it so acutely embodies, or to the cute love story at its center. However personally I was very fascinated by the way it treats space and I think this might be one of its most enduring qualities and the one that truly sets it apart.

Breakfast at Tiffany's takes place in a world of small apartments (echoing some kind of personality) and vast open spaces (seemingly more lifeless and mechanical); it's a story about imaginary cages and real ones. The film works its way around those concepts in fascinating ways: First of it is wonderfully photographed, the full scene is always lighted, the shadows are very soft, the contrasts clear but not dazzling; the whole scene is always visible, yet the 2 main characters are just about always the focal point of the scene, rendering the world around them redundant (in that sense it got a little from the ballet or musicals). This works both with concept of the outside/inside (apartment vs. public New York) and the concept of a cage, as the main characters are always wrapped in a bubble or perhaps a cage.

Which leads me to my next point: there is an inherent ambivalence about what a cage is in this film. On one side there's Holly's disdain for names and for belonging to someone (as she sees this as a cage), on the other side her hunt for property (money) and her eagerness to marry and to sell herself. There's the real cage Sally lives in, the conceptual cage of an apartment or a city and the psychological cage of oneself and yet on the other side there's an aimlessness to the main character's lives that resembles freedom. However they achieve nothing with their freedom (Holly earns no money, Paul doesn't get his novel finished) and thus it might also be a cage, while dedication to one thing might become freedom (or obsession as highlighted by Doc Golightly). Either way, the lines are clearly blurred.

The film further does something very interesting with the insides and outsides. It plays around with the superficiality of the characters, which is mirrored by the films structure that is centered around apartments and the public life in the city. The apartments would traditionally be seen as the inside, a shelter from the world and a place for quiet, intimate introspection, while the city (and in 1961 New York was the biggest city in the world) would be seen as the outside, a hectic and nameless world where everyone is a stranger. Still the film manages to turn that upside down. Usually the furnishing of an apartment would reflect its owner. It does so in Breakfast at Tiffany's but only in the sense that it is completely impersonal. Paul's apartment is decorated by his mistress, thus it is only her projection of him, while Holy decorated her apartment in an impersonal way in accordance with her values. Even the Chinese man's furnishing, recalls rather his cultural heritage than himself. Thus the characters become strangers to themselves and the world, they swim around anchorless in a modern, fragmented world, without any true representation of self. I think it's fair to say that this is a general point about society and not just applicable to the main characters.

Interestingly from here the film goes a path which few other films thread as it connects connotations of home to the outside world. For instance Holly cherishes Tiffany as the most homely place in the world (maybe again a product of her self-projection away from herself) and the salesman there is humanized when he is memorizing his past in a sudden moment of sentimentality, while beforehand he was only seen as someone with a function, a nameless salesman, who might as well be a machine. Further the film challenges our conventional ideas of space, when it fills an apartment to the edge of its capacity (for Holly's party which is a rather impersonal moment) and renders a big public space almost completely empty in the conversation between Paul and Doc (which is in turn a rather intimate moment despite the 2 people being complete strangers).

It is in such depictions where the film is at its most free-spirited, when it starts to show us a world beyond our own property (our apartments), that is just as much our home, a world where everything seems to be fleeting but our own dedication and ambition. It is a world where people pass through others apartments just as through a public space (I'm referencing of course to Paul and Tiffany) and where people become people again instead of a mere function.

Of course in this review I completely omitted the idea of personhood which this film also challenges by Holly's double identity and the double identity she imposes on Paul (Fred) and I also didn't focus on how Melancholy plays into the film (of course the rain at the end is very important here) and how the film subverts it twofold, by ridiculing and cherishing it. However IMDb's character limit allows for no more space than 1000 words, which ties in neatly as a finishing point to this little review about space (the film makes a somewhat similar point with Paul's short stories).

All in all it's a great film, worthy of its enduring reception and as I hope to have portrayed (be it in a limited format), there is more to the film than just enjoyable fluff which some reviewers were quick to put it off as.

I generally liked Westfront 1918 but I have slightly mixed feelings towards it. Especially the combat scenes were incredible (and it's a major part of the movie so it shouldn't be undervalued). Close to the beginning there's a scene with a trench collapsing while there are still soldiers within. This more or less has engraved in my mind. Also generally the approach is really physical. Unlike many other WW I films it renders the battlefield very vast and barren. The climactic long battle which leads directly to the dreadful end at the camp is overall an incredible sequence. Which in my opinion grasps something that other WW I films do not. A lot of it is really connected to the social realism that was so integral to Pabst style. He has a fascinating and compelling take on it as the movie is general, yet not impersonal, apathetic or exploitative. It makes you see a much broader picture than most other war films. The delivery from the battlefield to the camp at the end plays out almost like a metaphor for institutionalized death, like being controlled by a machine. The squeezing of the soldiers under the collapsing trench also connects wonderfully to this imagery, empathizing the desperate position of the soldiers. The spare time spent at home and social establishment seems like an escape from this but it ultimately only draws the soldiers back in.

The problem is though that while I greatly admire Pabst sensibilities and unique touches the film feels sort of fragmented and not that dynamic. I really didn't want to see that time spent of the front as I had the feeling I had seen it all before and I knew exactly where it was going and it's not particularly dramatized. It's quite dry in short. I don't really see this as a weakness in general (as keeping it realistic and relatable was essentially the goal of social realism) but it didn't work for me. I thought that the film felt kind of dated in that respect as I would argue that the film was immensely important when it was released but today a lot of the personal context (which people back then brought with them in form of their own experiences) is lost.

Eric Rohmer (the director of Pauline at the beach) is perhaps most well-known for his film-cycles. He would take one main theme and approach it in a cyclic (some might even say repetitive) way through multiple movies. In his life he made 3 cycles: The 6 Moral Tales (in the 60's and 70's), The Comedies and Proverbs (in the 80's) and The Tales of Four Seasons (in the 90's).

Pauline at the Beach is part of the Comedies and Proverbs cycle (it's the third installment). As the title suggests the reoccurring motifs in the comedies and proverbs are a comedic approach and a unique proverb that each film is based on. Pauline at the beach is based on the proverb: "Qui trop parole il se mesfait" (a quote from Chrétien de Troyes' Perceval) which roughly translates to: "Whoever talks too much does himself a bad turn". The proverb is displayed as part of the opening credits.

The plot is very simple: The 15 year old Pauline and her significantly older and just divorced cousin (Marion) go on summer vacation to a house near a beach that belongs to Marion and her brother. During their stay they meet 3 men: Pierre, a former friend of Marion who is (still) in love with her, Henri, a divorced ethnologist who praises freedom and independence, and Sylvain, a boy not much older than Pauline. The movie tracks Pauline's and Marion's vacation and their affairs with the men. The catalyst for all their meetings is the beach and the characters express themselves through elaborative speeches about their love life and how one should love. Often their actions contradict what they say.

Rohmer counters the rather static talking by exhibiting layered backgrounds, beaches, gardens, clubs, streets, thus giving us a rich and detailed panorama; an atmosphere that feels just like holiday. He also focuses on body-language – subtle movements and quick glances give us a better idea of the characters and their relations. Especially Pauline gets her fair share of screen time. When Pauline, Marion, Henri and Pierre meet at Henri's on the first evening they have a lengthy talk about their love lives or rather their ideals concerning those. Pauline says nothing (until she is later asked to) and while all the other characters sit and talk the camera follows her when she walks over to the chimney (and later back again). In fact the movie seems to draw a line between Pauline and the adults – by framing and by the arrangement of dialogue. Pauline says relatively little. She seems to focus more on actions – when Henri kisses her feet to wake her she kicks him in the chest before saying anything.

A central conflict in the film ensues when Henri meets with Louisette (a girl who sells candy at the beach) and sleeps with her when he is already romantically involved with Marion. Marion comes back while both are still in bed and Henri convinces Marion that Louisette was really together with Sylvain (who is also at Henri's house) although he is romantically involved with Pauline. Subsequently the gossiping arises, Marion tells Pierre and Pierre tells Pauline who is as a result disappointed by Sylvain and doesn't want to see him anymore; and although Pauline later learns the truth her affair with Sylvain is over, the talking did all the damage.

A very defining aspect of Pauline at the Beach is if you look at it as a coming of age movie, a movie about the loss of a child's innocence, that Pauline doesn't actually lose her innocence – she never sleeps with Sylvain. However it could yet be described as a loss of innocence. She has now been exposed to the love-games of the adults, in fact without wanting it she has been a part of them. Thus she didn't lose her innocence by herself but her surroundings achieved that.

The movie has a very closed feel to it: it starts with Pauline opening the fences in front of Marion's house and ends with her closing them. It singles out Pauline's vacation and makes it stand as something unique from the rest of her life – thus highlighting the importance of the events that happened but also trivializing them as something that's over, closed and locked away in her memory, and has little connection to the rest of her life.

With Pauline at the Beach Rohmer paints an almost mystic painting of innocence and childish naivety. Through the contrast to the love-games of the adults he is able to single out Pauline who seems like someone stuck in the wrong painting. Amanda Langlet (Pauline) plays this role exhilaratingly well – she seems at the same time young and naïve, yet also wise and knowledgeable.

Pauline at the Beach is a love letter to childhood. It stresses the importance of naivety, openness, shows us the vile entanglement that detaches us from the world around us and from ourselves. Rohmer achieves a fresh and vibrant tone; he treats each character with respect and grants them the room that they need to not become objects, subject of the story but subjects by themselves; he effortlessly emulates the relaxed and laid back atmosphere of a summer holiday – yet over this joyous ambiance loom the dangers that the future will bring – all the entanglements that the world will plant upon you.

Star Wars is filled with references and influences. However how the whole thing was put together (mixing all kinds of different stuff ranging from Metropolis to age old myths and sagas to old serials to Kurosawa samurai movies) was strikingly original.

I think TFA lost a lot of the original vision. Sure it was technically competently made (only generally some of the cuts seemed a little too fast for me - it took away from the momentum) and overall fun to watch. Also the new actors did a surprisingly good job.

However I think it lacked the mythological atmosphere of the originals and it really didn't try more than just being an action flick and to please everyone... To me Star Wars was more. Kind of like a modern myth with heightened reality and an endless galaxy full of possibility. This movie used surprisingly little of that potential. When I was a child I always imagined how amazing stories you could tell in continuation of the saga and I also read the Timothy Zahn's "Hand of Thrawn" books which had an amazingly original and well told story which was generally accepted as the continuation of Star Wars back in the day (Lucas even acknowledged it and used parts of it - like for instant Coruscant - for his prequel trilogy). Also I played the Knights of the old Republic role playing games (the original 2 which are like 10 years old now) which are just as well full of amazing original designs and questions. Instead of referencing Star Wars they questioned the universe setting up some amazing scenarios (many of which were really grounded - the most emotional part in the first game is awhen a droid wnts to kill himself because his master has an unhealthy love affair with him... yeah I know it sounds weird but it's fantastic once you have all the context and are pushed into that situation yourself). The 2nd one even becomes incredibly philosophical (at least for Star Wars or videogames) and questions morality in a really compelling way.

And actually that's what I would have kind of wished for: an adaptation of one of the best existing stories in the expanded universe. They had amazing material to choose from, really.

TFA was just full with references to only the originals. I don't at all mind inspirations or references. They could have made "Star Wars the Shakespeare Adaptation" and I would have been incredibly excited. It's just that thematically this felt really incoherent and it didn't end up saying or expressing much. They weren't doing much more than recalling the originals and they kind of just rushed over the entire background (in general the entire movie feels much too rushed because there's too much in there). I mean how does this movie even follow up Return of the Jedi? It twists the entire ending and nothing is explained. It's not because I want the movie to be overly explanatory but I think some things ought to be explained because of the giant departure from the ending of ROTJ. Like what's the entire political situation (really, they could have put that in the title scroll and they'd be done with that)? What is the resistance? What is the First Order? Who reigns the galaxy? Shouldn't the rebellion technically have formed a new government after they defeated the empire? And shouldn't Leia (a politician) be involved in that and not in that resistance thing? It just seems like they very cheaply tried to recreate the positions from the original trilogy (even with a new Death Star which is by far the worst rehash from the original trilogy - it already made less sense in ROTJ seeing as it failed once already in the original Star Wars and now they do it a third time?). Also the characters suddenly seem very jumpy. Luke doesn't at all seem like someone who would just go away and abandon his friends. I really did not buy it (but technically Luke wasn't really in the movie yet so I suppose it's fair to wait out for the next movie). Also the entire Solo family just kind of fell apart with only some very rushed explanations which I didn't entirely buy the way they were conveyed. After all family was always a very important theme in Star Wars.

Generally it had some interesting concepts like the Stormtrooper ethics, Rey waiting for her family (this kind of recalls the originals as well but its different enough to not make me care about that), Poe Dameron possibly being gay (as pointed out in an analysis I watched), the entire medieval mythology stuff surrounding Kylo Ren ("The Knights of Ren", his lightsaber), Kylo Ren's state of mental health or whatever (I don't really get all his character motivations honestly even though the film tries to explain some). However (expect for Rey waiting for her family) it's all incredibly underexplored.

I'm rather forgiving to the story flaws though (some of which seem quite catastrophic as of now) as technically this was only the first installment. If it becomes coherent in the final act in the last movie I'm entirely fine with that although I very much hope some things are resolved in the beginning of the 2nd movie. In the end the starting position for the 2nd movie seems really intriguing.

Ultimately I had fun. However it seems like the prequels reversed. No ideas but good execution vs. interesting ideas and bad execution. I suppose that's what most fans are happy with now but ehr... it's nowhere near the originals for me (which are all 3 top 20 of all time).

Also I'd like to point out that the scene that felt most like Star Wars was on Han's new ship with the monsters and smugglers/bounty hunters (?). Oddly that's the one scene which was entirely voluntary to the rest of the plot...

I went into X-Men: The Last Stand without knowing anything much about the characters, the original comic books or the previous movies which I hadn't seen. As the X-Men movies have had remarkable success and set their mark on culture however, I knew about a guy with "lasereyes", I knew that Hugh Jackman was Wolverine and I knew that I'd get Patrick Stewart in a wheelchair…

Perhaps it seems ironic to blind-start (well, almost) into a franchise with a movie called "The Last Stand" and I didn't decide for myself that this would be the best place to start as the TV stations decided to air The Last Stand one day before the first two X-Men movies. However maybe the TV stations had a point… well, they probably hadn't but maybe there's a point to starting with the Last Stand:

So what is the point?

The Last Stand is incredibly packed… and I mean incredibly packed. It races through themes of cultural, social and philosophical relevance like a short-distance runner. It builds up metaphors, links concepts to individual characters (and their powers) and draws from a seemingly endless stack of themes. It lives in a limbo of themes that define political debates today. In only 104 minutes it makes us think about social conformity, the gay debate, genetic engineering, distribution of power, terrorism etc. The actions the characters do and the concepts explored are truly worth thinking about. In presenting them The Last Stand might be rushed and it barely reaches a conclusion (well, should it?) but it's undeniably very interesting.

The movie enters where the 2nd part left. It introduces us to new mutants (notably a guy with angel wings which he's ashamed off – a metaphor for homosexuals and coming out) but also returns to the ones established in the previous films. After the events in X2, the team seems to be building up (as suggested in a training sequence at the start of the film) but the past is not yet over… Scott in particular mourns the loss of Jean, distancing himself from the others in the process.

Afterwards two main plot lines emerge: The government produces a cure for mutants, which rids them of their powers and Jean reemerges but this time as a being called Phoenix that acts only on it's instincts. Over the course of the movie we learn that Jean is in fact the most powerful of all mutants, that her powers are matched by no one. She's an allegory on absolute power.

The problem this movie faces isn't that it lacks content. It outdoes any other superhero film in terms of content. But when compared to it's predecessors it actually lacks something: A competent dramatic structure. While in terms of content the stakes are very high, in terms of characters they are very low. Scott, a main character from the previous 2 films, vanishes without the others caring much and any other character development that happens feels either rushed or barely happens at all. If you've watched the first 2 movies before watching The Last Stand you'll probably be disappointed by the way this movie handles it's characters. That's why watching The Last Stand first might actually be a good idea.

The movie has been rightfully criticized for all of this. 104 minutes just aren't enough for the story it attempts to tell. But while it's important that we use our heart, we also shouldn't forget to use our brain. It takes an incredibly amount of thematic weight to the final battle which the title suggests will happen. Close to the end we are confronted with a sequence of lyrical beauty: While Jean destroys everything around her, Wolverine, being in love with her still, approaches her. He moves further and further despite his skin being ripped off in the process. When through all that destruction, he finally reaches in to her you'd think he just wants to hug her… It's a very tangible moment that makes you feel the characters and makes you relate to the pain and trouble you might have sometimes had when trying to reach through to people you love.

In the end The Last Stand isn't a perfect movie, not even remotely. But it's an interesting and unique movie that in a genre often packed with fast paced action, manages to bring a lot of thought, even if it might not be fully coherent.

This was the first silent feature film I ever watched. At the time it was obviously a little strange as I was only used to "talkies" however Nosferatu has haunted me ever since. I don't mean to say that I wake up at night, sweating and riddled with terror – however part of the movie stayed with me since then.

Of course there are the technical aspects. Murnau had been a director for 3 years when Nosferatu was made, yet he commands the technical aspects like he'd been at it an entire lifetime. With him he has an entire toolbox full of visual devices: Deep focus (screw you Citizen Kane!), time-lapse, stop motion, shadow-plays, low angles, etc. And then there's the cutting… compared to other movies made at the same time, the movie is actually cut quite fast. However it's not cut chronologically and some of the things make little sense seen only in the context of the story. For instance we are shown a random scene of a professor showing his students a flytrap when none of the characters features before or after. The narration is truly impeccable and entirely unique. It adds up better as a dream than as a story...

Now the story, that's a peculiar case… It's an adaptation of Bram Stoker's Dracula which wasn't all that known back then. So the production team simply got at it without acquiring the rights. They changed a few names and settings, omitted a few characters and then went on to work with the story which stayed largely the same (one of the major differences is the ending of course). As it stands it's really simple: Graf Orlock (aka. Nosferatu) orders a guy named Hutter to his castle to sell him a house in Wisborg (a fictional German city). Hutter goes there but is captured by Nosferatu who travels to Wisborg and takes at Hutter's wife (obviously this is omitting some major plot points). While the movie resonated well with critics and audiences at the time, there was one major problem - Bram Stoker's widow was yet alive and apparently she wasn't very amused so she dragged the production company, Prana-Film, to court. Nosferatu became their first and last film and it was ordered to be destroyed. However that effort ultimately proved to be pointless as the film existed in too many copies already. So the film remained, Bram Stoker's novel received renewed interest (ultimately leading to a stage adaptation and the Lugosi film in 1931), Murnau became a big name and Prana-Film vanished.

People like to talk about Nosferatu in relation to expressionism. Of course it makes sense given the cinematic movement at the time (German expressionism), Schreck's makeup, the dark theme, the connections to nature (e.g. the aforementioned flytrap) and Murnau's use of shadows. However personally I think it links much, much better to romanticism. For Nosferatu Murnau used mainly natural settings, shooting mostly on location (he even went as far as Slovakia for the exterior shots of Transylvania). He uses wide establishing shots, showing us nature which is either void of humans or renders them insignificantly small. The entire movie is in vein of a strangely melancholic mood that culminates whenever Murnau (a former art student) copies the paintings of Caspar David Friedrich (one of the leading painters in romanticism and a personal favorite) in still shots (Consider Friedrich's Moonrise at the Sea and Hutter's wife, Ellen, waiting for him by the sea, Friedrich's Woman at the Window and the symmetric shot of Ellen opening the window or Friedrich's The Abbey in the Oakwood and Nosferatu's destroyed castle at the end).

Although Nosferatu is (in my opinion) the most terrifying portrayal of Dracula, it's also possibly the most daring, complex and human. The movie stresses nature (as evident in the large establishing shots) and above all doing as one's nature bids one. The movie shows arrays of living creatures (wolfs, horses, rats, flytraps, flies, spiders, cats and even bacteria, amplified by a microscope). They all do as their nature bids them, the wolf stalks horses, the spider devours its prey and the flytrap eats flies…

If we relate this to Nosferatu, what is he? The manifestation of evil or merely an outsider who doesn't fit in by nature? Given he's a vampire him sucking blood is only natural. He follows that urge that defines him - and he dies. He dies by the sunlight, he can't withstand. Is this a "happy end"? Is it a tragedy? Is it neither? Personally I found the death to be very sad: The sun shines through and Nosferatu clutches to his heart and slowly dissolves into nothingness.

It is debated whether or not Bram Stoker was gay. We're certain about Murnau. Given the disdain for homosexuals at the time, I think the ambivalence is very much intended.

If you look beyond the shadows you might see something beautiful - Nosferatu is one of the most visionary examples of artistic realization I have ever witnessed and maybe the best horror movie of all time – 10/10