Reviews

Part 1 of Fassbinder's sci-fi foray, World on a Wire is quite good. I always like his direct, theatrical style. He opens with some references to 2001 -- white plastic futuristic decor, space opera music -- to set the tone. Then there's a whole lot of Alphaville -- hosts of blank expressions held artificially long -- and early Godard. And sure enough Eddie Constantine even has a small role near the end of Part 2.

It's a very Matrixy premise, from way back in 1973, of a world of people, termed identity units, created artificially in a supercomputer as an experimental control group, with the goal of predicting future human behavior and learning what to avoid/promote. There is an element of Big Gov't social engineering, and then companies move in to try to learn future demand (Big Steel is the baddie here, which is a little dated). In other words, it's just like today's world, with all of us trying to become identity units for Google to track ... or somesuch. The Thirteenth Floor (1999) is also based on the same novel "Simulacron 3" by Daniel F. Galouye.

Fassbinder uses lots of mirror shots to disorient and question the reality of identity and the nature of reality. With the camera often tracking over to mirrors, or starting with mirror images which only become apparent when the camera tracks a person's movement away from and out of a mirror. The room housing the supercomputer has a couple of fully mirrored walls, which gives it a sleek futuristic look, and acts as a visual metaphor for the layers of reality/unreality.

I especially liked seeing Fassbinder regulars pop up. El Hedi ben Salem plays a bodyguard/security agent; Barbara Valentin a sexy secretary/ corporate spy. This was originally done for German television, and Fassbinder uses some of these actors for his later TV opus Berlin Alexanderplatz. There is a weird sequence in World on a Wire, where Gottfried John's character takes over Gunter Lamprecht's body (which in BA terms is Reinhold taking over Franz Biberkopf, which has eerie resonance).

I was a bit underwhelmed with the extra: Fassbinder's World On A Wire: Looking Ahead To Today, but it did shed light on the casting. The fearless 27 year old Fassbinder used many older ex-stars for the project, an interesting decision to go retro to obtain a slightly futuristic feel -- similar to Godard's choice of Eddie Constantine in Alphaville. Fassbinder wants something to be a little off and odd about the characters, and so he uses past-their-prime actors, has them stare blankly unnaturally long, and dresses them up in costumes, distinctly retro, which they wear like costumes. This style creates a unique look and feel to the whole proceedings, distinctly off and slightly phony, accordant with the artificial reality theme.

The second half of World on a Wire is a little weaker. Part 2 becomes a paranoid thriller, as Fassbinder mostly focuses on the psychological aspects and the chase/hunt for the man who knows too much about the different levels of reality. And actually that's a joke Fassbinder tosses in. The focus is on a lone man wrongfully accused and caught up in a vast conspiracy. Less than one minute after I said to myself, Gee, this is becoming rather Hitchcockian, Fassbinder has a character refer to another's death by saying, "poor Franz Holm, a man who knew too much." Wink.

Part 2 is similar to such political/corporate conspiracy films as Parallax View, but now I see that Wire came out the year before Parallax. And Soylent Green came out just a few months earlier. Interesting. Altogether World on a Wire is nearly 3' 20", and it probably could have used a bit of trimming and tightening in the second half. But this is really an interesting addition to the Fassbinder legacy. Quite a treat for Fassbinder fans.

Ascent to Heaven (aka Mexican Bus Ride) is a sweet little gem of a film. The movie deals with issues of life and death and marriage in a straightforward realistic manner. Oliviero gets married, and goes away on his "honeymoon" (local tradition has the newlyweds spend a night on a nearby deserted island). While still rowing out to the island, he is called back by his brother informing him that his mother has become worse and is on her deathbed. There's a nice moment to illustrate his new bride being (understandably) abandoned, as we see Oliviera and his brother talking in the motorboat, and then, after a pause, see the bride behind them being towed in the rowboat.

As it turns out, the Mother controls a sizable inheritance which Oliviera's two brothers have designs upon. The Mother wants to make a final will leaving the choice property to her deceased daughter's young son. But the scheming brothers are drinking buddies with the local gov't official, who declares himself unwilling to get involved in a family matter. So it's up to Oliviera to travel to the nearest city and get a real lawyer to secure the Mother's final wishes.

So, along with Oliviera, we take a Mexican bus ride. Just as Oliviera's family life has ups and downs (a new wife and a dying mother), villains and innocents (his brothers and his nephew), and tough choices (abandoning his mother's deathbed to ensure her wishes), the bus journey will replicate and expand upon the difficulties of doing the right thing in an unpredictable world. The Mexican Bus Ride -- Bunuel's amusing metaphor for life's journey -- is a protracted and messy affair, filled with many distractions, temptations, frustrations, and goals hard to reach, alternating with moments of happiness. It provides us with a child's birth, another child's death, and a child who shall lead us. One of the nice aspects is how everyone has their own story and attendant desires, hopes and dreams. The bus driver is able to make his mother's birthday special by bringing along a busload of celebrants (and customers to their café), which delays our hero's quest to help his own mother on her deathday. So Oliviera borrows a vehicle and continues on alone ... well, alone except for the town vixen who decides to hitch along.

"Ascent to Heaven" is the name of the treacherous mountain that Oliviera must cross to get to the city and try to set things right. While trying to stay on the straight and narrow, Oliviera is faced with a twisting perilous path. And just when he reaches the peak, he meets his downfall, allowing himself to be seduced. Reluctantly, almost accidentally, he veers off the righteous path of fidelity both to his mother's wishes and to his wife. (And since this is Bunuel, feel free to note the parallels to Christ being tempted by Satan on a lofty peak, and Eve leading Adam astray). Oliviera's weaknesses will lead to his failure. And Bunuel throws in a concluding irony. Although Oliviera's motives are pure and he acts not in self-interest, circumstances lead Oliviera to use fairly shameless deceit and dishonesty, much in the same manner as his brothers, to resolve his mother's estate. The final scene brings the story full circle ... despite whatever happens, life goes on.

The woman who plays the town temptress does an excellent job. Sexy and alluring, definitely dangerous. The dream sequence(s) are quite good and well-integrated into the storyline. The fiesta with its lovely song and typical Mexican band makes for a lovely interlude in the film. I don't really agree with the charges of poor editing others complain of, with one exception. Just for the record, we do see the bus begin to back up on the mountain pass for a second or two, though the cut at that point is rather abrupt. It should be noted that there is both a 74 minute US version (which I have seen) and the original 85 minute Mexican version, which probably explains any choppiness observed.

The film offers an interesting glimpse at daily life in Mexico of the era, and speaks to some of the transitions occurring. There's an impromptu contest between tractor and oxen. Election campaigning nearly turns into a riot/lynching, but instead the idea of a free franchise is upheld by both candidates and followers. The political candidate is probably my favorite character in the film, as he is a local peasant trying to improve his station by entering modern society. As an aspiring politician, he's a man of action, but mostly gets things done by recklessly waving a gun around and bullying people. He also likes to drink and is forever trying to get the vixen, so it's not hard to see the path of corruption that will befall Mexico if his kind make up the elected officials. Yet, as is common throughout Bunuel, the candidate has a good side as well, and is just a flawed human being, like all of us.

Just remember that when you scale the ascent to heaven, there's nowhere to go but down.

The biggest problem with YiYi is that it lasts for at least an hour too long, without saying much in the process. Another major flaw was the way that it spells everything out, without trusting to the audience to pick up subtly expressed connections and motivations. Two examples readily come to mind. When the characters one at a time talk to the comatose, but off-screen grandmother, I realized that this was akin to a form of traditional ancestor worship. Then the main character, the businessman, says directly that this talking is like praying. A more blatant example was the inter-cutting and overly obvious parallels between the father's past as discussed in Tokyo and his daughters present back in Taipei. This is where good editing could have made the film more thought-provoking, less obvious and more interesting.

Another problem for me was the fact that I couldn't connect or care about any of the characters. Possibly this was because they had trouble expressing emotion and interacting with each other, but I felt uninvolved with all of them. A pretty disappointing feat for a nearly 3 hour family character study. The camera work was also very static and dispassionate. At first, views through empty doorways, awaiting characters to walk through them, and long shots of couples seemed interesting. But their repetition and lack of variation made these distancing techniques become stultifying. This was especially true of the many long takes that occurred towards the end of the film.

I also thought the main character showed a fairly limited acting range, while some of the crying scenes were given over to poor acting. Overall, I was left mostly bored and wishing I had chosen a better and shorter film for the evening.

I was very disappointed in this film. There were so many moments in this movie that reminded me that I was watching a movie. I largely blame the dialog which was banal, clichéd and contrived. But also the direction and camera-work seemed to be straight out of a TV movie. Really this seemed to be a low-budget production.

** SPOILERS ** Two of the crucial scenes didn't work at all for me. When Carla visits Klein in the hospital and tells him that they must part, it seemed out of character for her. Not to mention unlikely and uninteresting. Of course it seemed implausible that both were basically unhurt, and that Carla appreciated the lesson in physics. And when Bridges has a severe reaction to eating a strawberry at the end, I found myself (inappropraitely) laughing at the scene. It just struck me as so much hokum. But really it was just another obvious and clichéd moment in a film that strung clichéd scenes together. ** END SPOILAGE **

Almost all of the secondary characters were useless and under-utilized. The psychologist and the lawyer were both embarrassingly handled. And get a load of of how awful all of the extras are, especially delivering their one line of false-sounding dialog.