Tag Archives: 1960’s

#192- Last Year at Marienbad

Quick recap: A man insists to a woman that he met her last year at-you guessed it- Marienbad.

delphine-seyrigs-style-last-year-at-marienbad-10-e1349333718554

Fun (?) fact: Delphine Seyrig, who plays the female lead, was Jeanne Dielman! I knew that movie would come back sooner or later to haunt me.

I didn't recognize her until I looked her up because most shots in this movie are of her looking off into the distance

I didn’t recognize her until I looked her up because most shots in this movie are of her looking off into the distance

My thoughts: Have you ever seen a perfume commercial and thought to yourself that it would be better if it was an hour and a half long instead of just 30 seconds? Well, then I have news for you! All your twisted dreams have come true in Last Year at Marienbad. The movie starts with a voiceover repeated the same few lines over and over and then there are people talking and then the rest of the film is the two main stars (who have no names, by the way) staring off into the distance, or sometimes at each other with pained expressions. Far be it from me to stereotype any kind of movie, but this one is very, very FRENCH.

I think that if all of the words were left out of the movie, it would’ve been more enjoyable to watch. The acting was meh but I absolutely loved the scenery and the costumes. The costumes, by the way were designed by Coco Chanel, which makes me wonder if this wasn’t actually a perfume commercial I watched after all. The music, too, was nice and suspenseful, although a little much sometimes.

So, I guess the question I’m supposed to ask is ‘did these two people actually meet last year….in Marienbad?’ and the answer is, maybe? I don’t know. The guy sure had some specific memories and even a picture of the woman he had an affair with, but she also seemed completely confused by the whole thing. One theory I read online was that the man was actually the woman’s therapist and he was inside her mind, trying to unblock something that had happened to her last year….in Marienbad. Another theory says that the man is from a parallel universe and is trying to warn the woman of something horrible about to happen this year….in Marienbad. Personally, I found the explanations much more interesting than the actual movie. Also, I could really go for some Chanel No.5. Is that still sold in stores?

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Final review: 2/5

Up next: Within Our Gates

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#189- The Firemen’s Ball

Quick recap: A fire department throws a party (or ball, if you will) to honor their outgoing chief. They screw everything up with both hijinks and shenanigans.

If you like your hijinks to be creepy as hell, this is the movie for you!

If you like your hijinks to be creepy as hell, this is the movie for you!

Fun (?) fact: The firemen portrayed in the film are not actors, but instead real firemen from the town the movie was filmed in.

Hitler mustaches were still the rage in Czechoslovakia in the 1960s!

Hitler mustaches were still the rage in Czechoslovakia in the 1960s!

My thoughts: I’m just going to jump right in and say that I didn’t find The Firemen’s Ball all that funny. That’s not to say that the movie was devoid of humor, but I don’t think I was the right audience. Set during the Cold War in Czechoslovakia, I can see how people in that country might be falling out of their seat in laughter, but seeing as how I am neither under a Communist regime (shut up, Ted Cruz) or Czechoslovakian, it didn’t interest me very much. For one, it’s a film with very dark humor, which I normally love, but these jokes landed closer on the side of just being mean. One of the main plot points is that the firemen want to organize a beauty pageant so that they might choose a beautiful girl to present the award to their former chief. Many girls don’t want to participate though, and the ones that do are not very attractive. One of the only girls they want shows up during the ball to reveal that she is wearing a bikini, since this is a competition. This leads to a very awkward situation where she is strutting around in basically her underwear while all these old creepy guys leer at her. I see the humor, but I’m not laughing.

After the film was over, I read the entry in my 1001 Movies to See Before you Die book to see if there was something I might have missed. There was. Turns out, the whole film was an allegory about the Communist regime. Knowing this pissed me off because I didn’t get that at all. So not only did I not find the movie all that hilarious, I apparently completely missed the entire point of the film. And then, in reading the Wikipedia entry, I read that the director didn’t mean for the movie to say anything about Communism. People couldn’t help but assign meaning. What the movie represents is a corrupt society with a corrupt leadership. That could literally be anywhere. It just so happens that the movie was filmed in a country with Communism so that’s what people saw, but corruption is at all levels,my friend.

I feel like knowing what the director thought gives me permission to assign my own meaning and in doing so, I can see the humor more than I did before. Throughout the film, items from the raffle keep getting stolen and it’s even revealed at some point that one of the firemen’s wives is in on it. One of the firemen asks the crowd to return the items and the lights would be turned off so that no one would be embarrassed. While the lights are off, the rest of the items get stolen. At the end of the film, after everyone has gone and the party essentially ruined, the men unceremoniously give the chief their present which, when he opens the box- has also been stolen. Take whatever lesson you want to in that scene, but it made me chuckle because you know, sometimes the drapes are just blue.

Final review: 3/5

Up next: She Done Him Wrong

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#185- 2001: A Space Odyssey

Quick recap: A group of scientists find a monolith buried on the moon and set off toward Jupiter in order to learn more about who might have placed it there. Oh, and there’s a crazy computer that wreaks havoc.

I feel like The Simpsons is just one long 2001 reference I feel like The Simpsons is just one long 2001 reference

Fun (?) fact: Conspiracy theorists (AKA nutjobs) claim that 2001: A Space Odyssey being released so closely to the moon landing is not a coincidence. They (the nutjobs) think that Kubrick directed the landing and used leftover props from his movie.

Ruffles

My thoughts: As I have come to learn with Kubrick films, they are infinitely more enjoyable on the big screen. I had the opportunity to watch 2001: A Space Odyssey at the Drafthouse and it was every bit as awe inspiring as I expected it to be. The Drafthouse played the entire thing-from overture, to intermission, to ending credits so that we, the audience, would have the full effect of the movie. It is a classic for sure, and yet I have no idea what the hell it is all about.

In writing that, though, I am fulfilling what Kubrick wanted. He said in interviews that he never meant ambiguity but he also said that he doesn’t expect anyone to fully ‘get’ it because it is open to interpretation. As pretentious as that sounds, I like that idea. My personal belief is that the movie is about evolution and the monolith represents the next step. Maybe it was set up by aliens? I don’t know. When Dave passes through all the light and ends up in the neoclassical room, I think it’s because he has seen the inside of the monolith, evidently all of time and space. As he progresses in age and finally back to fetus, he represents the ‘birth’ of a new age for Earth, something even more exciting to come. I have no idea if I am right and I don’t really care because that’s just not the point.

A guy next to me evidently hated the whole movie and when he left, scoffed and said that Star Wars was much better, in terms of special effects. I didn’t punch him, although I don’t think anyone would have stopped me. Aside from that guy (who also called the ‘intermission’, the ‘intervention’), I think most people would agree how amazing the whole movie looked. It’s so hard to believe it was shot in the ’60s and I was most impressed by how realistic space travel was portrayed. This is a very visual movie, which sounds redundant, but it’s not. There is very little dialogue throughout the whole thing, but there is so much too look at. It’s almost too much at times and I can see why so many people devote their lives to trying and figuring out all the symbolism.

The main reason the Drafthouse showed 2001: A Space Odyssey was because it is part of their ‘soundtrack’ series, which showcases movies with great soundtracks. So it’s a no brainer to include this film. Every note was put in place perfectly and set the mood for each scene in a way no other film I have seen does. The music heard when the monolith is first seen on the moon is terrifying and for good reason. It sounded like angry bee people or something and I actually felt an uneasiness throughout the entire scene. What also impressed me was how the absence of sound or music could be as equally terrifying. When HAL cuts the oxygen cord from the astronaut and sends him hurtling into space, that scene scared me as much as any other scene in a horror movie could have done.

Final review: 5/5. Go see it if you haven’t yet, but only watch it if you have chance to see it in a theater. I don’t see how a television could do it justice.

Up next: Fantastic Planet

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#183- Alphaville

Quick recap: Secret Agent Lemmy Caution has been sent to Alphaville to locate a missing spy and destroy the city’s ruler- a computer named Alpha 60.

That's some good spying going on, Caution

That’s some good spying going on, Caution

Fun (?) fact: Although it is a sci-fi film, director Jean-Luc Godard shot all scenes in real places around Paris and only used conventional firearms.

oooo, super sci-fi!

oooo, super sci-fi!

My thoughts: I had no idea what the hell was going on through most of the movie, and I’m still not sure what the ending was all about. Alphaville is one of those films pretentious people latch on to, but the general public would be bored to tears by it. There are many movies like that, including ones that I personally love, but this one just seemed to be pretentious for the sake of being pretentious. The director is French, after all, so maybe that’s why.

The plot of Alphaville is simple enough: spy comes to kill tyrannical leader who happens to be a supercomputer. A supercomputer in the 1960s, of course. If it was set in modern times, Lemmy Caution might be trying to murder Siri or something similar. The computer is all about logical thinking and holds executions for anyone who shows emotion, which is considered illogical thought. So, pretty straightforward, except that it wasn’t. There are several scenes in which Caution or the computer is talking and I had NO IDEA what they were saying. In looking up trivia for the movie later on, I found that many of the lines came from poetry, but it just sounded like beautiful nonsense in the context of the movie. I was also too caught up in the sci-fi details to really focus on the plot, like trying to figure out if Alphaville is a city or a planet and why it looks so similar to Paris.

Stripped down to its basic premise, Alphaville’s version of reality was quite interesting. Instead of a Bible, citizens use a dictionary, which changes constantly because words like ‘love’ and ‘weep’ are thrown out. People are treated like robots and are expected to behave as such, which also caused confusion for me because I thought the women were all computers. My favorite, scene, if you can call it that, was the depiction of the executions. There are a line of (mostly) men who stand on a diving board and are shot to death. They fall into the water, where a group of synchronized swimmers jump in to retrieve the body. Everyone claps politely and then the next person is brought in. This was the most ‘sci-fi’ part of the film and so messed up because everything looked so familiar. I actually like the idea of using present day locations because it seems as if the world depicted in the movie is not too far off from where we are right now.

Final review: 3/5. Alphaville is also considered noir, which is a weird pairing with the sci-fi genre, but I kind of liked it.

Up next: Gigi

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