Aujord'hui

I have what could be the hottest collection of famous people to share a birthday with: Akira Kurosawa, Michael Haneke, Amanda Plummer, Damon Albarn, Catherine Keener, Chaka Khan, John Bobbitt, Hope Davis, Richard Grieco, Keri Russell and Ric Ocasek [Correction: AND Joan Crawford. Holy shit.]

The Decade List: Gouttes d'eau sur pierres brûlantes (2000)

Gouttes d'eau sur pierres brûlantes [Water Drops on Burning Rocks] - dir. François Ozon

Water Drops on Burning Rocks was the first of François Ozon's bountiful offerings in 2000, the year in which he presented the two best films of his career (I have yet to see Ricky, however). Adapting the film from an unpublished play written by a nineteen-year-old Rainer Werner Fassbinder, Ozon mapped out his own career, in both his finer and weaker points. Unlike fellow second generation Douglas Sirk admirers like Todd Haynes or Pedro Almodóvar, Ozon's fascination with the melodrama could be attributed best to Fassbinder. While Haynes took a more direct approach, Ozon drew inspiration through the filtration of Sirk's legacy in Fassbinder, acknowledging his own (intended) similarities to the director with Water Drops on Burning Rocks and later Sous le sable, Le temps qui reste and Angel. The film, then, would showcase the talents of both artists before Ozon ventured on his own later in the year.

For Fassbinder, the play wonderfully embodies the sinister humor of his notable early works, like Katzelmacher and Why Does Herr R. Run Amok?, but it's The Bitter Tears of Petra von Kant where the most similarities can be found. With all the action confined within the walls of a single apartment, the single set piece transforms into the carefully adorned fighting ring for the four characters. It could be suggested that the claustrophobic restriction of the set would be the catalyst for the uncoiling misery in Franz's (Malik Zidi) life in the same way Catherine Deneuve's apartment in Repulsion would trigger her own demons. However, the apartment better represents the incubation chamber of Franz's despair, being left alone for weeks while his older lover Léopold (Bernard Giraudeau) travels on business. The key to Franz's unhappiness, like Petra von Kant's, lies within him as he becomes unable to extinguish the fact that he's fallen in love with someone who (likely) doesn't love him; the walls just amplify the anguish. Also like Petra (Margit Carstensen), he finds the outlet for its release in other people, spitting malice in the face of his former fiancée Anna (Ludivine Sagnier) just as Petra would to her secretary Marelene (Irm Hermann). Anna, though, is hardly the innocent witness to Franz's transformation. Between the two films (Petra von Kant was released nine years after Fassbinder would have written Water Drops), the most noticeable difference can be seen in the reversal of roles between the two central pairs of lovers, pegging the older Léopold as the predator in contrast to the younger Karin (Hanna Schygulla), whose involvement with Petra suggests self-advancing manipulation.

For Ozon, traces of Water Drops on Burning Rocks can be found in almost all of his subsequent works. Divided into four acts, the film moves from the playfully sexy to the dreadfully bleak, though the path isn't as straightforward as one might assume. Water Drops on Burning Rocks doesn't descend into the austere with each passing act; in fact, it retains its borderline misanthropic humor even after things get hopeless for Franz and Véra (Anna Thomson), Léopold's former lover who had a sex change in order to rekindle the spark in their dying relationship. The moment where Léopold phones Franz's mother at the end of the film painfully recalls the final moments of Why Does Herr R. Run Amok?; this coldness is shared by both of Franz's lovers, with Anna's line "Who's going to father my children now?" placing her on the same careless plane as Léopold.

In terms of characterization, Véra becomes the film's most tragic figure. Officially entering the film in the fourth act after showing up earlier at Léopold's door twice, she is subjected to Léopold's cruelty within her first steps into the apartment. Despite these initial signs of hostility from Léopold (he purposefully refers to Véra as an old "copaine" in order to correct himself with the masculine form of the word to insult her), she plays along with his game of sexual manipulation until it becomes clear that she's only being used to hurt Franz and to seduce Anna. For Franz, Véra's return gives him a glimpse of his own doomed future; however, he succumbs to the hopelessness before Véra even reveals her own inability to stop loving Léopold. Véra emerges as the tragic figure when the film lets her humanity surface. Unlike Franz, she didn't succumb to the unbearable mimicry that occurs in Franz during the third act. She retains the sad hope Franz holds in the second act, when his awareness of Léopold's nature is still balanced by attempts to reconcile his lover's terminal dissatisfaction. Thomson, who enjoyed a wave of popularity in France after the starring in Amos Kollek's Sue and Fiona, gives Véra the perfect amount of compassion and sorrow, which makes the film's final shot, in which the audience learns all they need to know about her future, ever so desolate.

Looking back at Water Drops on Burning Rocks, you can almost see Ozon's entire career up to now inside of it. Between the amazing fourth-act dance number to Tony Holiday's "Tanze Samba mit Mir" (8 femmes), the crippling aspects of a relationship gone sour (5x2), the knowing touches of melodrama (Le temps qui reste), the pop music cues of Françoise Hardy's version of "Träume" (Une robe d'été) and a character's inability to accept the end of a relationship (Sous le sable), all of his films appear to have stemmed from this one film. Although his body of work may vary as much in quality as it does thematically, the same can't be said for Water Drops on Burning Rocks.

With: Bernard Giraudeau, Malik Zidi, Ludivine Sagnier, Anna Thomson
Screenplay: François Ozon, based on play Tropfen auf heiße Steine by Rainer Werner Fassbinder
Cinematography: Jeanne Lapoirie
Country of Origin: France
US Distributor: Zeitgeist Films

Premiere: 13 February 2000 (Berlin International Film Festival)
US Premiere: June 2000 (New York Lesbian and Gay Film Festival)

Awards: Teddy Award: Feature Film (Berlin); Best Feature Film (New York Lesbian and Gay Film Festival)

The Decade List: Citizen Toxie: The Toxic Avenger IV (2000)

Citizen Toxie: The Toxic Avenger IV - dir. Lloyd Kaufman

In an effort to keep The Decade List from becoming too high brow, I present Citizen Toxie, the fourth installment of Troma's most popular film (it hilariously apologizes for parts 2 and 3) and the second of three recent Troma films (Terror Firmer and Poultrygeist being the others) to exceed its company's legacy of micro-budget gross-outs. Citizen Toxie is crass, obnoxious and, surprisingly, quite funny. A shabby mix of Citizen Kane, The Wizard of Oz and the Bizarro episode of Seinfeld, the film places Toxie, the first superhero ever from New Jersey, in a mix of interdimensional travel after failing to save the school of retarded children from a group of diaper-wearing terrorists. He's planted into Amortville, no relation to, but probably a close suburb of, Morteville from John Waters' Desperate Living, the lawless counter of his beloved Tromaville, NJ. I tried to find Citizen Toxie's most inspired moment, a send-up of Citizen Kane's newsreel sequence, on the Internet with no avail. Citizen Toxie is the best sort of tasteless; its reflexive grotesqueness puts to shame its low-minded Hollywood counterparts, not to mention the slew of putrid imitators (hi, Gutterballs).

With: Dave Mattey, Clyde Lewis, Heidi Sjursen, Joe Fleishaker, Paul Kyrmse, Michael Budinger, Lisa Terezakis, Debbie Rochon, Dan Snow, Ron Jeremy, Barry Brisco, Corey Feldman, James Gunn, Jason Sklar, Randy Sklar, Hank the Angry Drunken Dwarf, Julie Strain, Eli Roth, Lloyd Kaufman
Screenplay: Patrick Cassidy, Gabriel Friedman, Trent Haaga, Corey Kalman, Lloyd Kaufman, Matt Levin
Cinematography: Brendan Flynt
Music: Wes Nagy
Country of Origin: USA
US Distributor: Troma

Premiere: 2000 October (Sitges Film Festival)
US Premiere: 2001 November 2

Um, really?

RIP Natasha Richardson

Natasha Richardson's passing is pretty dreadful news. The daughter of Vanessa Redgrave and Tony Richardson, granddaughter of Sir Michael Redgrave and Rachel Kempson, niece of Lynn and Corin Redgrave, sister of Joely Richardson and wife of Liam Neeson, Natasha made memorable screen performances in Ken Russell's Gothic, Paul Schraeder's Patty Hearst, Volker Schlöndorff's The Handmaid's Tale and Schraeder's The Comfort of Strangers. Terrible.

Lisztomania on DVD, Pasolini and Anger on Blu-ray in the UK

Kino has pushed the date for Amos Gitai's One Day You'll Understand until 11 August, though they've announced Amat Escalante's Los bastardos for 16 June. It looks like Criterion's release of Bergman Island will not be the full-length Swedish version, but the US edit instead. I don't know what's missing from the US cut. And finally, The Weinstein Company announced Wayne Kramer's Crossing Over, with Harrison Ford, Ashley Judd, Ray Liotta and Jim Sturgess, for 3 June.

Here's the semi-annual update of upcoming DVDs/Blu-rays in the UK. The titles in red indicate films not on DVD in the US.

16 March

Black Snake - dir. Russ Meyer - Arrow Films

30 March

Celia - dir. Ann Turner - Secondrun

6 April

The Béla Tarr Collection (which includes Werckmeister Harmonies, Damnation and The Man from London) - Artificial Eye [also available separately]
The Silence of Lorna [Le silence de Lorna] - dir. the Dardenne Brothers - Drakes Avenue

27 April

Cold Prey 2 [Fritt vilt 2] - dir. Mats Stenberg - Momentum
Daisies [Sedmikrasky] - dir. Vera Chytilová - Secondrun
Gardens in Autumn [Jardins en automne] - dir. Otar Iosseliani - Artificial Eye
Julia - dir. Erick Zonca - Artificial Eye
Last of the Crazy People [Le dernier des fous] - dir. Laurent Achard - Peccadillo
Lemon Tree [Etz Limon] - dir. Eran Riklis - Unanimous Pictures
Paris Is Burning - dir. Jennie Livingston - Second Sight
Pier Paolo Pasolini's Trilogy of Life (The Decameron, The Canterbury Tales, Arabian Nights) - BFI - DVD and Blu-ray
Sometimes a Great Notion - dir. Paul Newman - Optimum Releasing

4 May

He Ran All the Way - dir. John Berry - Optimum Releasing
Lisztomania - dir. Ken Russell - Digital Classics
Spring and Port Wine - dir. Peter Hammond - Optimum Releasing
The Young Savages - dir. John Frankenheimer - Optimum Releasing

11 May

6 Films by Takeshi Kitano (Sontaine, Kids Return, Violent Cop, Getting Any?, Boiling Point, A Scene at the Sea) - Second Sight [all are available separately, not in a box]
Life Is a Long Quiet River [La vie est un long fleuve tranquille] - dir. Étienne Chatiliez - Artificial Eye

18 May

Caro Diario - dir. Nanni Moretti - Arrow Films
Lemon Popsicle [Eskimo Limon, aka Going All the Way] - dir. Boaz Davidson - Arrow Films
The Magick Lantern Cycle (Fireworks, Puce Moment, Rabbit's Moon, Eaux d'artifice, The Inauguration of the Pleasure Dome, Scorpio Rising, Kustom Kar Kommandos, Invocation of My Demon Brother, Lucifer Rising) - dir. Kenneth Anger - BFI - DVD and Blu-ray
Parade - dir. Jacques Tati - BFI

25 May

Beautiful Losers - dir. Aaron Rose, Joshua Leonard - Revolver
The Bed Sitting Room - dir. Richard Lester - BFI - DVD and Blu-ray
The Michael Haneke Trilogy (The Seventh Continent, Benny's Video, 71 Fragments of a Chronlogy of Chance) - Artificial Eye
Ordeal by Innocence - dir. Desmond Davis - Optimum Releasing
Pumping Iron - dir. George Butler, Roger Fiore - Lionsgate

1 June

A Christmas Tale [Un conte de Noël] - dir. Arnaud Desplechin - Drakes Avenue

8 June

Before I Forget [Avant que j'oublie] - dir. Jacques Nolot - Peccadillo
The Class [Entre les murs] - dir. Laurent Cantet - Artificial Eye
Milk - dir. Gus Van Sant - Momentum - DVD and Blu-ray
Odette - dir. Herbert Wilcox - Optimum Releasing
Partner - dir. Bernardo Bertolucci - BFI
La vallée - dir. Barbet Schroeder - BFI

22 June

Vicky Cristina Barcelona - dir. Woody Allen - Optimum Releasing - DVD and Blu-ray

29 June

Che [Parts 1 and 2] - dir. Steven Soderbergh - Optimum
Wendy and Lucy - dir. Kelly Reichardt - Soda Pictures

The Decade List: Sous le sable (2000)

Sous le sable [Under the Sand] - dir. François Ozon

The term "growing up" always comes with a hint of condescension. I try to gravitate toward the word "maturing," but isn't that just an euphemism? So for lack of better terminology, Under the Sand was the once-labeled garçon terrible of French cinema's coming-of-age. His fourth feature after a plethora of shorts (and Gouttes d'eau sur pierres brûlantes earlier that year), Under the Sand was a step forward for the director, who, with Sitcom and Les amants criminels, seemed unable to resist the fleeting charm of shock and disturbance. Pairing with actress Charlotte Rampling, whose career resurgence could be attributed single-handedly to Ozon, Under the Sand was the director's own L'avventura (though it also bares resemblance to Anthony Minghella's Truly Madly Deeply with a rigid tonal difference). Within the first twenty minutes of the film, Jean (Bruno Cremer), the husband of English literature professor Marie Drillon (Rampling), vanishes without a trace on a beach during the couple's vacation. Stricken with grief (or is it denial?), Marie returns to Paris as if nothing had happened.

Under the Sand's strength comes not only in Rampling's riveting performance but in Ozon's reluctance to diagnose Marie's condition. At a dinner party hosted by colleague and friend Amanda (Alexandra Stewart), Marie casually suggests that Amanda's husband Gérard (Pierre Vernier) should join her gym as it would convince Jean to start exercising as well. The rest of the party looks on, uncomfortably, as the subject is quickly averted. As she returns home, after being escorted by publisher Vincent (Jacques Nolot) whom Amanda is trying to set up with Marie, Jean appears in the shadows of the apartment. Was he still alive? Or was this just a figment of Marie's imagination, a way of coping? When it becomes clearer that Jean wasn't found that day at the beach, Marie's mental and emotional state becomes more disoriented. She speaks of Jean in the present tense, even correcting Vincent at a pivotal moment, but it seems that the more the audience discovers, the less Marie appears to know about what's going on in her world.

Our understanding of Marie's condition reaches a turning point after a doctor's visit, in which she's asked to settle her husband's bill as well as her own. With reservation (or is it confusion?), she asks the receptionist when his last visit was. At this point, we realize Marie isn't in a conscious state of denial, though it might have felt that way earlier when she adamantly denies recognizing one of her students who happened to be one of the lifeguards searching for her husband that summer. Things take a further turn when Marie visits her mother-in-law (Andrée Tainsy), who naively (?) suggests that Jean didn't drown and had disappeared purposefully to get away from Marie. It's the feistiest scene in the film, and it's to Ozon's credit that, like the rest of the film, the explosion comes calmly, resisting the urge to show a pair of proper ladies duking it out; he would give in fully to that urge with 8 femmes. Like Lea Massari's Anna in L'avventura, Jean is riddled with ennui, something that isn't apparent to his lover. Marie and Jean's relationship, seen in the film's early scenes, had been reduced to silence and impersonal small-talk. Marie never senses his distance, but after seeing the way she handles his disappearance, this might be a result of living in a constant state of denial.

By remaining implicit about Marie's coping, Ozon permits Rampling to brilliantly shape her character. In bouts of girlish exuberance, Rampling takes Marie through not just the stages of grief but of self-discovery. Mercifully, this isn't a film about reinventing and discovering yourself late in life, so there's a greater level of intrigue when Marie blushes at Vincent's courting and giggles uncontrollably when they start to have sex for the first time. The moments, in which Rampling returns Marie to the seemingly forgotten days of youthfulness, revive her, if only momentarily, as the dread sinks in when things become more familiar the night Jean decides to stay the night. The complex relationship between the knowledge of the viewer and of Marie wouldn't have worked without Rampling, whose beauty seems eternally preserved. Her performance keeps Under the Sand mysterious, an effort that would prove less successfully when she re-teamed with Ozon in 2003 with Swimming Pool.

Under the Sand is just one example of a common sentiment among French filmmakers in relation to the beach and les vacances. Alongside films like Catherine Breillat's Fat Girl, Sébastien Lifshitz's Presque rien, Julie Lopes-Curval's Bord de mer, Anne-Sophie Birot's Les filles ne savent pas nager and Ozon's later Le temps qui reste, the expected relation between summer and relaxation or frivolity appears to have been replaced by layers of coldness and despair (Olivier Ducastel and Jacques Martineau's Crustacés et coquillages would provide the counter to these films). I plan to address this in later posts about a few of the aforementioned films.

With: Charlotte Rampling, Bruno Cremer, Jacques Nolot, Alexandra Stewart, Andrée Tainsy, Pierre Vernier
Screenplay: Emmanuèle Bernheim, Marina de Van, François Ozon, Marcia Romano
Cinematography: Antoine Héberlé, Jeanne Lapoirie
Music: Philippe Rombi
Country of Origin: France
US Distributor: Wellspring

Premiere: 11 September 2000 (Toronto International Film Festival)
US Premiere: 4 May 2001 (New York City)

Awards: Audience Award: Best Actress - Charlotte Rampling (European Film Awards)