The Decade List: Le temps qui reste (2005)

Le temps qui reste [Time to Leave] – dir. François Ozon

Fans of François Ozon, once dubbed the garçon terrible of French cinema in the late ‘90s, seem to diminish with each passing film. Though few will argue that the year 2000 marked the highest point of his career (with Under the Sand and Water Drops on Burning Rocks both bowing in that year), I haven’t fallen off the bandwagon, despite a number of reservations I have toward his two most widely-seen films, 8 Women [8 femmes] and Swimming Pool, both blissfully entertaining but severely lacking beneath their polished veneer. Ozon’s thematic sequel to Under the Sand, Le temps qui reste (correctly translated as The Time That Remains), shares the same traits that bothered me about 8 Women and Swimming Pool, but they feel like less of a disguise here.

Le temps qui reste, 8 Women and Swimming Pool all follow closely to their own genre allusions; more than its predecessor, Le temps qui reste pays tribute to melodrama, a genre which Ozon has always toiled with in smaller doses. In the film, Ozon gives himself completely over to the idea, dislodging the tongue-in-cheek sensibilities of his previous flirtations with his Sirkian tendencies. While much of the film relies on artifice, I sense a peculiar, refreshing honesty in what Ozon’s trying to do.

While he situates an attractive gay male in central role, a position often held for women in the genre, Ozon doesn’t set his sights on redefining or updating the genre. While spotted with bits of superficiality (Melvil Poupaud seems to get more handsome the closer he gets to death), the moments of beautiful clarity truly resonate. From the point early in the film when Romain (Poupaud) discovers he’s a few months away from death as a result of a spreading tumor, the film follows his grief process through the designed closures Romain concocts for the people closest to him, some successful, others not. For his unhappy, older sister Sophie (Louise-Anne Hippeau) and his younger, German boyfriend (Christian Sengewald), Romain uses his remaining time to sabotage these relationships, while finding a solitary comfort in his grandmother (Jeanne Moreau), the person in the film he finds the closest bond, both in personality and in approximation to death.

While Ozon does strive on some level to avoid overt sentimentality, it’s more accurate to say that he keeps his drama on a low flame. I hope my friend Tom doesn’t mind, but he highlighted one of the biggest complaints I’ve heard about Le temps qui reste in an e-mail exchange earlier this year. He said, “Ozon's formal restraint may have suited his subject matter, but… I thought a showier technique wouldn't be so much inappropriate as less bland.” Perhaps it’s in Le temps qui reste’s blandness that I find the “honesty” I think Ozon is producing. In keeping the film on the subtle(r) side, Ozon delivers a number of rich moments, especially when Moreau is onscreen, that the showiness he painted 8 Women and Swimming Pool with would have only clouded. Le temps qui reste isn’t a grand triumph for the director, but it’s one that has always lingered for me, whether I can successfully defend my feelings or not (likely the latter).

With: Melvil Poupaud, Jeanne Moreau, Valeria Bruni-Tedeschi, Daniel Duval, Marie Rivière, Louise-Anne Hippeau, Christian Sengewald, Henri Le Lorme, Walter Pagano, Ugo Soussan Trabelsi
Screenplay: François Ozon
Cinematography: Jeanne Lapoirie
Country of Origin: France
US Distributor: Strand Releasing

Premiere: 16 May 2005 (Cannes Film Festival)
US Premiere: 14 July 2006

Is bicycle theft a deterrent to city cycling?

Recently, Translink invited NY Transportation Commissioner Janette Sadik-Kahn to Vancouver to talk about making the city more bicycle friendly. While I had to miss her talk, I understand from Frances Bula's story in the Globe and Mail that she indicated that one of the main reasons people do not want to ride their bikes is their concern about leaving their bikes on the street during the day.

I would like to echo her comments about the need for greater security for bikes. From my discussions with many cyclists and bike shop owners, and my own experience as a ‘new’ cyclist, I am convinced that far too many people are deterred from cycling because they fear their bikes will be stolen. And with good reason. Far too many bikes are stolen. Even bikes like my 70's Raleigh Tourist (see above).

The solutions? Bike cages are one idea that might work, especially located near transit stations (SkyTrain, etc.) with video monitoring. No doubt many of you have other ideas.

If your bike is stolen, how many of you have thought to have someone etch your drivers’ license number onto your bike? This apparently is one idea to help get stolen bikes back to their proper owner. Not as good, but better than nothing is to go home tonight and make a note of the serial number on your bike. It’s there somewhere on the frame.

I’m not sure if there is a central registry in the city. But if not, perhaps the Vancouver police can set one up. And if there is one, perhaps they can publicize it.

My daughter tells me the story of her friend who works as a DJ at the Astoria and had her bike stolen. So while doing one of her shows she asks around…who’s the asshole who stole my lovely black and pink such and such a bike? After buying a few drinks, she had it back.

Apparently ‘everyone’ in the DTES knows who steals a lot of the bikes in the city. The locals just pay to buy them back. I don’t think this is acceptable. In this case, it’s not just the theft of a possession; bike thefts are potentially undoing all the good of improved bike lanes, greenways, etc.

I hope city staff and the police can come up with a comprehensive plan to deal with the significant number of bike thefts. I’m convinced this could have a very positive impact on the number of cyclists in the city.

The Decade List: The Descent (2005)

The Descent – dir. Neil Marshall

Although it has little in the way of competition, The Descent is hands down the decade’s best English-language horror film. More than the “boo” scares or nausea-inducing gore of its peers, Neil Marshall extends The Descent beyond those easy tricks (not to say the film doesn’t have a pair of cheap startles or gross-out effects). A creature feature at heart, The Descent’s real “beauty” is the claustrophobic nightmare Marshall designs around his heroines. Female genitalia analogies aside, the cave, into which the six thrill-seeking gals descend, becomes the malevolent villain, equipped with darkness, daunting cliffs of unknown depth, miniscule crevices of questionable stability and the capacity to destroy its own exits and entrances. That blind, human-looking monsters dwell within it seems like one of its lesser deterrents.

Marshall knows what most horror directors should by now: gore alone won’t disturb your audience. By the time The Descent made its way to the US (with a dumb, but ultimately inoffensive add-on at the end), people were already gearing up for the third installment of the Saw series. The Descent certainly has a bit of disgusting flesh and organ eating, but he recognizes that true horror is made up of more than just an edible spleen. Truly, the most lip-biting, nails-in-the-palms sequences are when the girls have to climb across the ceiling of a pit to get across or when one graphically injures herself after tumbling through one of the cave’s many abysses.

Most of the characters are expendable, except for the Sissy Spacek-looking Sarah (Shauna Macdonald) and the excursion organizer Juno (Natalie Mendoza), but this doesn't make the deaths any less disturbing, even if it was easy to predict that the first to perish would be the overzealous lesbian-in-denial. The monsters do provide one or two moments of fear for the audience, specifically the first time the girls see one (which was stupidly shown in the TV spots), but it’s the frenzied action of the girls’ retaliation that’s more ruthless and exciting that the monsters themselves. Marshall knows that fear rests in the unknown, so editor Jon Harris cuts the action sequences rapidly to a point of raucous frenzy. This may not have worked in Batman Begins, but it does here. Keep your benzodiazepines handy, because The Descent is the sort of grueling film experience most of us have only heard tale of.

I’ll probably spend the remaining days of October looking at the some of the decade’s best offerings in the horror genre, which started over the weekend with Dario Argento’s Mother of Tears. If you want to play Decade List horror movie catch-up before Halloween, I’ve already covered Citizen Toxie: The Toxic Avenger IV, Alejandro Amenábar’s The Others, Claire Denis’ Trouble Every Day and Marina de Van’s In My Skin [Dans ma peau]. Expect the film adorning the header of my site next.

With: Shauna Macdonald, Natalie Mendoza, Alex Reid, Saskia Mulder, MyAnna Burning, Nora-Jane Noone, Oliver Milburn, Molly Kayll
Screenplay: Neil Marshall
Cinematography: Sam McCurdy
Music: David Julyan
Country of Origin: UK
US Distributor: Lionsgate

Premiere: 11 March 2005 (Brussels International Festival of Fantasy Films)
US Premiere: January 2006 (Sundance Film Festival)

Awards: Best Director, Best Technical Achievement – Jon Harris, editor (British Independent Film Awards)

The Decade List: La terza madre (2007)

La terza madre [Mother of Tears] – dir. Dario Argento

Nearly 30 years late, Dario Argento, once the maestro of gialli and gothic horror during the 1970s, completed his Three Mothers trilogy, which began with his beloved Suspiria in '77 and Inferno in '80. But is this really what we’ve been waiting for? Bearing little resemblance to either of the previous Mother films and utilizing as little skill as possible in every respect, it’s hard not to wonder what happened to Argento. Where did the beautiful cinematography, lush visuals and vanguard cinema tricks go? In Mother of Tears, they're ousted by something that strangely resembles a made-for-TV movie or, at its worst, a Full Moon direct-to-video release. Did Argento lose it or is he just letting someone else do the "tricks" for him? I could waste my time pondering or even bemoan what happened to such a fine director, but instead, I'll just celebrate the emergence of a new Dario Argento, a man more concerned with hilarious inanity and a vivacious lack of class (not that he ever really exuded much) than effective horror.

Certainly the thought crossed my mind that this might be one of the worst films I’ve ever seen at the helm of a once-respected auteur, but howling bursts of laughter quickly silenced that thought, and I'm not embellishing. Whether this exuberant hilarity is intentional or not doesn't matter, and whether it successfully closes the long open-ended Three Mothers trilogy becomes a remote argument.

Now, with every great cinematic disaster, there’s always the unfortunate casualty, and in Mother of Tears, it’s the director’s poor daughter Asia, whose emanatory humiliation is matched only by her disorientation. Being terribly miscast in daddy’s The Stendhal Syndrome sort of made sense, but by now, after working with some of contemporary cinema’s finest directors (Catherine Breillat, Gus Van Sant, Abel Ferrara, Bertrand Bonello, Tony Gatlif), the younger Argento has graduated from nepotistic roles in her father’s declining oeuvre. If her gratuitous shower scene wasn’t weird enough, her dead mother is played by her actual mother, Daria Nicolodi. Nicolodi did write Suspiria in addition to providing the voice of Mater Suspiriarum, but she too seems to not really give a fuck how the trilogy concluded. Her spirit’s “second death” while protecting her daughter is one of the film’s big laughs. Even old friend Udo Kier, who could never be accused of “slumming,” shows up for a moment as a priest before reaching a gruesome demise; Kier also had a small role in the trilogy’s first installment.

The optimistic Dario Argento fan might come to the false conclusion that in Mother of Tears he addresses his harshest criticisms, like Lars von Trier does in Antichrist, by pushing them to their limit. Of course, I’m talking about his oft-suspected misogyny, something easily deducted from the trail of (naked) dead (attractive) women he’s left behind. In one particular scene, the robed killer massacres a lesbian couple, whose relation to the story I’ve already forgotten. More memorable than their involvement with the course of action is the giant phallic spear that’s shoved in one of their vaginas only to, naturally, come poking out her mouth. To attempt to gauge whether the dyke murders are any worse than anyone else’s in Mother of Tears would be trying to push one of your own buttons. Dario’s ability to offend his audience is on par with his capacity to derive genuine terror out of his film (which is to say, nil).

While it took him nearly three decades to unleash this Mother, the film he bestowed upon us is not the director’s way of addressing, confronting or examining… anything. Mother of Tears will likely have most fans of Suspiria and Inferno puzzled at what it is they’ve waited so long for. In leaving technical dexterity and innovative vision behind, Mother of Tears isn’t left with a lamentable void; it’s the birth of a new Dario Argento, the incongruous humorist who knows how to make bad so terribly good.

With: Asia Argento, Cristian Solimeno, Adam James, Udo Kier, Daria Nicolodi, Moran Atias, Valeria Cavalli, Jun Ichikawa, Robert Madison, Coralina Cataldi-Tassoni, Paolo Stella
Screenplay: Jace Anderson, Dario Argento, Walter Fasano, Adam Gierasch, Simona Simonetti
Cinematography: Frederic Fasano
Music: Claudio Simonetti
Country of Origin: Italy/USA
US Distributor: Myriad Pictures/Dimension

Premiere: 6 September 2007 (Toronto Film Festival)
US Premiere: 25 April 2008 (San Francisco International Film Festival)

The Decade List: (Some of) The Worst Films (2007)

Since it was established with 2006's Worst that the Austin Butt-Numb-a-Thon, hosted by everyone's favorite troll, is a legitimate place for a film to make its world premiere, technically 300 and Black Snake Moan belong in the previous year. But 300 is such a fucking horribleterriblewretched film that I'll just leave it with the '07s for now. Black Snake Moan, however, doesn't even register on the shit list when compared to that garbage I once heard referred to as "gay porn for soccer moms," but it sucks enough on its own, outside of one nicely edited music sequence.

This list does beg the question: which breed of bad movie is worse? The obvious abortions (I Know Who Killed Me, Norbit, Good Luck Chuck) or the respected-foreign-auteur-remakes-himself-in-some-form-or-another-for-his-English-language-debut (My Blueberry Nights, Funny Games U.S.)? It was a real lousy year for both Wong Kar-wai and Michael Haneke, whose '07 offerings reeked of not just complacency but utter laziness. Neither could be accused of losing artistic control as a result of Hollywood's over-the-shoulder glare as both were multinational productions, receiving quite a bit of funding from the French in addition to their native countries. They had otherwise respectable English-speaking actors on board, who either did their usual schtick (Naomi Watts) or just embarrassed themselves completely (Rachel Weisz).

Thankfully, Haneke has recovered from the injury of Funny Games U.S., which was one of the major failures that eventually shut down Warner Independent, with his creepy, elegant Palme d'Or winner The White Ribbon [Das weiße Band]. Wong has yet to truly follow My Blueberry Nights up (Ashes of Time Redux doesn't count), though he has reteamed with Tony Leung for 2010's Bruce Lee/martial arts "biopic" The Grand Master, rumored to also star Gong Li and an out-of-retirement Brigitte Lin.

Some lingering questions/thoughts about a few of the titles below. 1.) Why do my parents insist on watching that manipulative drivel August Rush every time its on television (which can sometimes be thrice daily)? 2.) Aside from Assayas' demonlover (and probably The Wizard, but for altogether different reasons), most films that visually incorporate video games are going to blow (w/r/t Ben X, and possibly its upcoming American remake if that's still in production). 3.) Jodie Foster < style="font-weight: bold;">Diary of the Dead? It retains none of the qualities that made his previous zombie films (even Land of the Dead) so enjoyable. 5.) If Dragon Wars had extended that big Los Angeles destruction scene into its full running time, you might have seen it appear on the actual Decade List (as long as they axed poor Robert Forster in the process).

6.) Lots of nudity apparently does not make a horrible movie that much more tolerable (w/r/t the Uschi Obermaier biopic Eight Miles High). 7.) In the past 10 years, The Texas Chainsaw Massacre received a crappy US remake, a crappier US prequel and a wonderful in-spirit-only French take in Fabrice Du Welz's Calvaire; so why bother with something as lousy as Frontière(s)? 8.) Was anyone else deeply disturbed by Dawn Wiener's death scene in Hostel: Part 2? I've already forgotten the specifics of everything else about the movie, but that scene... I can't get rid of. 9.) I should look up and see what other films were in the running for the Caméra d'Or at the '07 Cannes Film Festival, because there had to be something better than Jellyfish playing that year. 10.) The list has a number of "comedies" that didn't pull a single laugh out of me: Good Luck Chuck, Jack Brooks: Monster Slayer, Mr. Woodcock, Molière, Kiss the Bride, Starrbooty and The Ten. I'm pretty sure I Now Pronounce You Chuck & Larry belongs on that list, but I can vouch that the others didn't provoke even a smirk out of me.

- 300 - d. Zack Snyder - USA [also here]
- August Rush - d. Kirsten Sheridan - USA
- Ben X - d. Nic Balthazar - Belgium/Netherlands
- Beowulf - d. Robert Zemeckis - USA
- Black Snake Moan - d. Craig Brewer - USA
- The Brave One - d. Neil Jordan - USA/Australia
- City of Men [Cidade dos Homens] - d. Paulo Morelli - Brazil
- Diary of the Dead - d. George A. Romero - USA
- Dragon Wars [D-War] - d. Shim Hyung-rae - South Korea
- Eight Miles High [Das wilde Leben] - d. Achim Bornhak - Germany
- Elizabeth: The Golden Age - d. Shekhar Kapur - UK/France/Germany
- Frontier(s) [Frontière(s)] - d. Xavier Gens - France/Switzerland
- Funny Games U.S. - d. Michael Haneke - France/UK/Austria/Germany/USA/Italy [also here]
- Good Luck Chuck - d. Mark Helfrich - USA
- Hannah Takes the Stairs - d. Joe Swanberg - USA
- Happily N'Ever After - d. Paul Bolger, Yvette Kaplan - USA/Germany
- Hostel: Part 2 - d. Eli Roth - USA
- I Can't Think Straight - d. Shamim Sarif - UK
- I Know Who Killed Me - d. Chris Sivertson - USA
- I Now Pronounce You Chuck & Larry - d. Dennis Dugan - USA
- In the Valley of Elah - d. Paul Haggis - USA
- Into the Wild - d. Sean Penn - USA [also here]
- Jack Brooks: Monster Slayer - d. Jon Knautz - Canada
- Jellyfish [Les méduses] - d. Shira Geffen, Etgar Keret - Israel/France
- Joe Strummer: The Future Is Unwritten - d. Julien Temple - UK/Ireland
- Kiss the Bride - d. C. Jay Cox - USA
- Lost in Beijing - d. Li Yu - China
- Molière - d. Laurent Tirard - France
- Mr. Woodcock - d. Craig Gillespie - USA
- My Blueberry Nights - d. Wong Kar-wai - Hong Kong/France/China
- Norbit - d. Brian Robbins - USA
- The Orange Thief - d. Vinnie Angel, Boogie Dean, Arthur Wilinski - USA
- Poor Boy's Game - d. Clément Virgo - Canada
- Schoolboy Crush - d. Kôtarô Terauchi - Japan
- Sex & Breakfast - d. Miles Brandman - USA
- Starrbooty - d. Mike Ruiz - USA
- Sunshine - d. Danny Boyle - UK/USA
- Teeth - d. Mitchell Lichtenstein - USA
- The Ten - d. David Wain - USA
- Then She Found Me - d. Helen Hunt - USA

DVD Update - 18 October

Multiple titles of varied interest and appeal. Highlights include Lorna's Silence on 6 January, a new Flicker Alley release in Miss Mend, also known as The Adventures of the Three Reporters, and Gurinder Chadha's Agnus, Thongs and Perfect Snogging on 22 December (which a friend of mine recommends highly... we'll see about that). Disney has re-announced their 3-disc DVD of Like Stars on Earth, a Bollywood feel-gooder, for 12 January.

- The Private Lesson [Lezioni private], 1975, d. Vittorio De Sisti, Sinful Mermaid/MVD, 20 October
- The Sex Is Crazy [El sexo está loco], 1981, d. Jesús Franco, Sinful Mermaid/MVD, 20 October
- Kleinhoff Hotel, 1977, d. Carlo Lizzani, Obsession/MVD, 17 November
- Drop Dead Rock, 1996, d. Adam Dubin, MVD, 8 December, w. Adam Ant, Debbie Harry
- Miss Mend, 1926, d. Fyodor Otsep, Boris Barnet, Flicker Alley, 2-DVD Deluxe Edition, 15 December
- Angus, Thongs and Perfect Snogging, 2008, d. Gurinder Chadha, Paramount, 22 December
- Lorna's Silence [Le silence de Lorna], 2008, d. Jean-Pierre Dardenne, Luc Dardenne, Sony Pictures, 5 January
- In Praise of Older Women, 1978, d. George Kaczender, Koch Vision, 12 January, w. Tom Berenger, Karen Black, Helen Shaver, Alexandra Stewart, Alberta Watson
- Pretty Ugly People, 2008, d. Tate Taylor, Osiris, 12 January
- My Führer: The Truly Truest Truth About Adolf Hitler [Mein Führer - Die wirklich wahrste Wahrheit über Adolf Hitler], 2007, d. Dani Levy, First Run Features, 19 January
- Whisper & SHOUT! [flüstern & SCHREIEN], 1998, d. Dieter Schumann, First Run Features, 19 January
- Bad Biology, 2008, d. Frank Henenlotter, Shriek Show, 26 January
- Give 'em Hell, Malone, 2009, d. Russell Mulcahy, National Entertainment Media, also on Blu-ray, 26 January, w. Thomas Jane, Ving Rhames
- The Higher Force [Stóra planið], 2008, d. Olaf de Fleur Johannesson, Vanguard, 26 January, w. Ingvar Eggert Sigurðsson, Hilmir Snær Guðnason, Michael Imperioli
- Like a Dragon, 2007, d. Takashi Miike, Tokyo Shock, 26 January
- Malcolm X, 1992, d. Spike Lee, Warner, 2 February
- The End of the Line, 2009, d. Rupert Murray, New Video, 23 February

Blu-ray

- Dogtown and Z-Boys, 2001, d. Stacy Peralta, Sony, 5 January
- Riding Giants, 2004, d. Stacy Peralta, Sony, 5 January
- The Deadly Duo, 1971, d. Chang Cheh, Tokyo Shock, Blu-ray, 19 January
- Dumbo, 1941, d. Ben Sharpsteen, Disney, 23 February

Saturday November 14, That was the year that was!

As someone who has always celebrated birthdays and anniversaries (even the anniversary of my former employer's receivership), I thought it was appropriate that we somehow mark the One Year Anniversary of the last Vancouver municipal election with an event.

I therefore put together with Gordon Price and Bob Ransford a draft program for a community forum which was sent out to a number of potential participants. The list included Mike Howell, who writes the 12th and Cambie column in the Courier, and who wrote the following piece. I should note that this was printed before many potential speakers had been confirmed, and a number of the people who were 'expected' will not be able to paticipate.

Election reflection As the first year anniversary of last year's civic vote approaches, a failed NPA candidate is organizing an event to look back at the election and talk about what has happened at city hall since then.

Michael Geller, who finished 1,525 votes out of a council seat, and NPA cohorts Gordon Price and Bob Ransford will host "That was the year that was: A look back at the year in Vancouver municipal politics and a look forward."

The Nov. 14 event is planned for the Wosk Centre for Dialogue (expected to be confirmed Wednesday) and will comprise three sessions.

Architect Gregory Henriquez, Kera McArthur of ThinkCity, Bernie Magnum of the Board of Trade and Joel Solomon, Mayor Gregor Robertson's financial backer and economic adviser, are expected to be among the panelists.

Topics include development, housing, transportation, the Burrard Bridge bike trial and the economy. Journalists are also expected to share their views in a media panel session.

"While some of the participants have past ties to the NPA, it is proposed that this not be a highly charged event," says the email dispatch from Geller. "Rather, the intention is to take a look at what has been happening and engage in substantive discussions on key issues to hopefully identify strategies and actions for the coming year."

The Program

I am pleased to advise that this event is now confirmed for the SFU Wosk Centre for Dialogue on Saturday November 14, from 8:30 to 12:30 . (Coffee and muffins from 8:00 am) Admission is on a first come, first served basis.

While speakers are still being finalized, the program will include opening comments by moderator Bob Ransford, a well respected communications consultant and regular contributor to the Vancouver Sun Westcoast Homes section.

The first panel will include a presentation by Gordon Price and myself, followed by a panel discussion on achievements in the areas of planning and development including housing the homeless, STIR rental housing, laneway housing, and other Council decisions over the past year.

A second panel will look at the fiscal considerations at City Hall, including the budget, and the recently announced Green Capital initiative, which as an aside, I personally support. Panelists will include representatives of ThinkCity which has been regularly polling Vancouver residents on their position and priorities on municipal funding; the Board of Trade; the Vancouver Economic Development Commission and the Green Capital initiative.

The final panel will let us hear from some of the city's key media personalities who have been following City Hall. The moderator will be Frances Bula, for many the undisputed dean of municipal affairs reporting in Vancouver. Other panelists will include Monte Paulson of The Tyee, Alex Tsakumis of 24 Hours, Mike Klassen or Daniel Fontaine from CityCaucus.com and one other yet to be confirmed media personality.

While more details will be forthcoming, I do hope that many people who follow the Vancouver municipal scene will mark their calendars and plan to attend, regardless of who they voted for on November 15, 2008!