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(12/07/00 3:59am)
The year 2000 has been one of the worst quality-wise in the history of the multiplex. One highly anticipated Hollywood work after another has proven to disappoint, from the snooze-inducing mediocrity of Ridley Scott's "Gladiator" to the cliched likes of Cameron Crowe's "Almost Famous." \nThe list of Hollywood horrors is as long as the length of the absurdly overblown "The Patriot." But, one thing Americans tend to forget is that there is a world outside their coastlines -- and this was a grand year for international cinema, especially as far as its recognition goes stateside. \nFor instance, Iran had one of its grandest years yet with such works as "The Circle" and "Blackboards" receiving acclaim at festivals worldwide -- unfortunately, neither have been released in the United States yet. Iran also finally got some exposure in American theatres via the aid of the Shooting Gallery series presentation of "A Time for Drunken Horses." \nArguably, the most important film event of the year in America was also internationally-based -- the long overdue retrospective of Taiwanese auteur Hou Hsiao-hsien. Though earning high acclaim from critics, his films had previously received little attention from theatres in the states. \nSadly, as long as Kerasotes is deciding Bloomington's cinematic menu, the vast majority of 2000's cinematic highlights will remain unknown until Ryder or video stores deliver them next year.\nThe list of the 10 best films I saw this year is composed of many works that have been circulating around the festival circuit or wasting away in distributor limbo for upwards of three years. \nThis list is far from complete. 'Tis the fate of all fruitless lists of this nature, so without further ado, here is my list of the ten best examples of cinema screened in America during 2000:\n1. "The Wind Will Carry Us" (Abbas Kiarostami, Iran)\nWith the lone exception of Hsiao-hsien, there is no contemporary filmmaker who rivals Abbas Kiarostami's understanding of the cinematic art form. "The Wind Will Carry Us" is the ultimate testament to this. Kiarostami dares to ask the viewer to unload all of his mental baggage into the holes blatantly left open in the narrative. It concerns an engineer in a remote Iranian village working on some telecommunications-related project that might or might not affect a dying woman. Because of the elliptical storytelling, countless different readings can be made about this film's dealings with technology, media power and gender roles.\nIt is cinema as poetry, a poeticism complete with immaculate natural sound and rich landscape photography. "The Wind Will Carry Us" is the definitive masterpiece by a director who still has a multitude of truths to reveal to his homeland and the rest of the world.\n2. "Yi Yi" (Edward Yang, Taiwan)\nThe title of Edward Yang's brilliant three-hour tale of a Taiwanese family's ups and downs between a wedding and a funereal directly translates into English as "One One." Such repetition is presented in shots of lonesome characters gazing out of windows at nighttime cityscapes.\nMuch like "The Wind Will Carry Us," "Yi Yi" has a universal message rooted in its origins: Do not lose sight of different perspectives. With the release of this Yang piece and the recognition of Hou's oeuvre, maybe America has finally opened its eyes to Taiwanese cinema.\n3. "Ratcatcher" (Lynne Ramsey, UK)\nMost filmgoers only knew of one British child-based flick in 2000 -- the overly lauded "Billy Elliot." Critics and distributors alike have ignored another such film, first-time director Lynne Ramsey's wondrous "Ratcatcher." The whole movie plays like a dream procured from the leading boy, who aspires to move away from the impoverished, garbage-infested reality of mid-1970s Glasgow. And what a visually intoxicating dream it is, from the curtain-wrapped kid in the film's opening to the fantastical mouse voyage to the moon.\n4. "Beau travail" (Claire Denis, France)\n"Beau travail's" ending features some of the most jarring frames of film this year. The preceding 90 minutes probe the angst and insecurities of a man slipping into insanity. Director Claire Denis aids the viewer in this quest with the only the barest essentials -- sparse dialogue and non-linear narrative. By far, it's one of the most challenging and rewarding films in recent memory.\n5. "George Washington" (David Gordon Green, USA)\nWith all of Hollywood's overblown blockbuster hoopla, it is only fitting that the best American feature of the year is by a 24-year-old first-timer. A technically stunning debut, David Gordon Green's "George Washington" follows the exploits of five Southern teenagers, listening in on their unique brand of philosophy. Edited in a manner that Green described as "putting in all of the scenes that are usually left on the cutting room floor," it simply cannot be written off as just another independent movie.\n6. "A Time for Drunken Horses" (Bahman Ghobadi, Iran)\nOne of many disciples of Kiarostami, Bahman Ghobadi proves that he has his own style in this debut work about a family of children struggling to exist in a Kurdish village. Emotionally taxing and cinematically stunning, especially in its many silences, it is further evidence of Iran's cinematic prosperity.\n7. "Claire Dolan" (Lodge Kerrigan, USA)\nIn a year when cinema was highlighted by women's films, a movie by a man about a woman freeing herself from the bondage of men turned out to be one of the best. The opening exterior shot of a sea of apartment windows sets the tone a cold detachment in the most disturbing stateside work of the year.\n8. "The Day I Became a Woman" (Marzieyh Meshkiny, Iran)\nA lyrically engaging allegorical portrait of the Iranian female experience, "The Day I Became a Woman" delivers a unique tale of gender oppression for all to ponder.\n9. "Ghost Dog: The Way of the Samurai" (Jim Jarmusch, USA)\nOther than John Sayles, Jim Jarmusch is the dominant American cinematic voice as far as multiculturalism goes. "Ghost Dog" is his most culturally thick work yet, partly because of its samurai philosophy. African Americans, Italians, Haitian immigrants, women and children all find that they share a similar voice in this satirical parable, even if they had never before realized it.\n10. "Peppermint Candy" (Lee Chang-Dong, South Korea)\n"Peppermint Candy" begins in the present and keeps going back in time to show one man's descent from happiness to disgust with life. Portraying South Korea's transformation, the backwards narrative structure is only one of its many resonating attributes.
(11/30/00 7:50am)
To finish out the semester, City Lights is offering up quite a cinematic treat. It will screen two of Alfred Hitchcock's greatest works -- "The Thirty-Nine Steps" and "Notorious." "The Thirty-Nine Steps" is arguably Hitchcock's finest post-silent British work. It has the ultimate prototypical Hitchcockian set-up -- an unsuspecting character, in this case a Canadian (Robert Donat) who is visiting England, implicated in the theft of national secrets and murder. Hitchcock utilizes the finest thriller plotting imaginable in this excessively entertaining film.\nFollowing up the above masterstroke by the master of suspense is an almost equally engaging work -- "Notorious." The all-star cast of Cary Grant, Ingrid Bergman and Claud Rains is enough in itself to propel this film to greatness, with the plot involving the teaming-up of American agent Grant and a traitor's daughter (Bergman) in search of Nazis propelling this to a ranking among Hitchcock's best.
(11/30/00 7:33am)
Hollywood's infatuation with comic books is only natural from a profit standpoint -- make a movie about a superhero whose existence knows no age barriers and rake in the dough. But only a handful of filmmakers have ever capably translated the visual "pow" and narrative compactness of comics to the big screen. Among them are George Lucas, Sam Raimi and now M. Night Shyamalan, whose "Unbreakable" is among the finest contemporary sprocket-holed comic books, but not without some disturbing scruples.\nIn the distant past, a woman in a back room of a department store cradles her newborn baby while the shocking news that her baby boy's arms and legs are broken is relayed. Cut to present day: David Dunne (Bruce Willis, who proves once again he is a master at reserved acting) is riding a train home to the off-kilter reality of his wife (Robin Wright Penn) and son. One edit later finds Dunne in a hospital as the lone survivor of a freak train accident. Even more remarkable is that he's unscathed. \nDunne returns home to his football stadium security job as if nothing peculiar happened. That is until Elijah Price (Samuel L. Jackson, in what is arguably his greatest performance to date), the fragile grown version of the boy from the film's opening, enters his life. Price makes his comic book acumen apparent by asking the improbable: could Dunne actually be superhuman?\n"Unbreakable" delves deeper than ordinary superhero mythos into the territory of self-realization. Both Dunne and Price arrive at their character epiphanies in separate manners. "Unbreakable" deals with a lack of religious doctrine. These so-called contemporary evils prove to be the greatest flaw of "Unbreakable." Why does writer/director Shyamalan decide that Dunne will bypass a rapist to prove his heroism? Why does Dunne eventually clash with an inhumane being that is shown graphically spitting on a dead victim?\nFor an auteur who seems to have a decent grasp on religion, such images can either be looked at as morally contradictory or as trying to prove that modern day heroes have to deal with greater malefactors than in the past. This critic tends to think that "Unbreakable" goes too far in the shock-value department, but maybe Shyamalan will establish more precedent for these concepts in the rumored second and third parts to the "Unbreakable" trilogy.
(11/30/00 5:00am)
Hollywood's infatuation with comic books is only natural from a profit standpoint -- make a movie about a superhero whose existence knows no age barriers and rake in the dough. But only a handful of filmmakers have ever capably translated the visual "pow" and narrative compactness of comics to the big screen. Among them are George Lucas, Sam Raimi and now M. Night Shyamalan, whose "Unbreakable" is among the finest contemporary sprocket-holed comic books, but not without some disturbing scruples.\nIn the distant past, a woman in a back room of a department store cradles her newborn baby while the shocking news that her baby boy's arms and legs are broken is relayed. Cut to present day: David Dunne (Bruce Willis, who proves once again he is a master at reserved acting) is riding a train home to the off-kilter reality of his wife (Robin Wright Penn) and son. One edit later finds Dunne in a hospital as the lone survivor of a freak train accident. Even more remarkable is that he's unscathed. \nDunne returns home to his football stadium security job as if nothing peculiar happened. That is until Elijah Price (Samuel L. Jackson, in what is arguably his greatest performance to date), the fragile grown version of the boy from the film's opening, enters his life. Price makes his comic book acumen apparent by asking the improbable: could Dunne actually be superhuman?\n"Unbreakable" delves deeper than ordinary superhero mythos into the territory of self-realization. Both Dunne and Price arrive at their character epiphanies in separate manners. "Unbreakable" deals with a lack of religious doctrine. These so-called contemporary evils prove to be the greatest flaw of "Unbreakable." Why does writer/director Shyamalan decide that Dunne will bypass a rapist to prove his heroism? Why does Dunne eventually clash with an inhumane being that is shown graphically spitting on a dead victim?\nFor an auteur who seems to have a decent grasp on religion, such images can either be looked at as morally contradictory or as trying to prove that modern day heroes have to deal with greater malefactors than in the past. This critic tends to think that "Unbreakable" goes too far in the shock-value department, but maybe Shyamalan will establish more precedent for these concepts in the rumored second and third parts to the "Unbreakable" trilogy.
(11/30/00 5:00am)
To finish out the semester, City Lights is offering up quite a cinematic treat. It will screen two of Alfred Hitchcock's greatest works -- "The Thirty-Nine Steps" and "Notorious." "The Thirty-Nine Steps" is arguably Hitchcock's finest post-silent British work. It has the ultimate prototypical Hitchcockian set-up -- an unsuspecting character, in this case a Canadian (Robert Donat) who is visiting England, implicated in the theft of national secrets and murder. Hitchcock utilizes the finest thriller plotting imaginable in this excessively entertaining film.\nFollowing up the above masterstroke by the master of suspense is an almost equally engaging work -- "Notorious." The all-star cast of Cary Grant, Ingrid Bergman and Claud Rains is enough in itself to propel this film to greatness, with the plot involving the teaming-up of American agent Grant and a traitor's daughter (Bergman) in search of Nazis propelling this to a ranking among Hitchcock's best.
(11/17/00 5:01am)
____simple_html_dom__voku__html_wrapper____>This extraordinary work of cinematic art nabbed the Palme d'Or at the 1983 Cannes Film Festival and rightly so. Based off a 1958 Japanese film of the same name, this work weaves a glorious tapestry about a remote village where the old, when they reach 70, are taken to an adjacent mountain to die. A woman approaching this age accepts her fate, while her son struggles with its reality.
(11/17/00 5:00am)
In 1958, director Orson Welles attempted to make a stateside comeback with this brilliant noirish tale filled with exhilarating visuals and a wicked dose of black humor. Unfortunately, the film failed in the eyes of Universal, its distributor, resulting in Universal destroying some of Welles' original vision via some editing choices. Welles reacted with a 58-page memo detailing changes he wanted to be made. This memo was ignored until two years ago, when Universal decided to go back to utilize Welles' suggestions and release a newly edited version of the film.\nThis DVD presents this new version of the film in anamorphic widescreen format. Also included is the text of the memo and the film's original trailer (which is definitely a nifty trailer to look at). Nothing else but some Universal promotional crappola can be found. No original version of the film is included, which is a costly omission since that is the true version of the film, while this is nothing more than a special edition, a la "Star Wars," with the director not even having a chance to officially do the editing.\nBut it gets worse. Does "Touch of Evil" really need letterboxing? According to various film sources, very little, if any letterboxing is required. Supposedly, some pieces of the frame might be truncated on all sides, resulting in cropped heads and other lost visuals.\nIn the end, this is a DVD not worth owning. Hopefully, Universal will wise up and release a much improved \nversion in the future, with both widescreen and non-widescreen formats and the original version of the film.
(11/17/00 5:00am)
With his third feature, "Magnolia," Paul Thomas (P.T.) Anderson decided to finally hone in on his skills for refined cinematic plagiarism and produce a deeply involving and emotional work. P.T. ends up standing for P.T. Barnum as Anderson orchestrates a gargantuan cast featuring stand-out performances from all, especially Tom Cruise and John C. Reilly, a multi-faceted storyline and Aimee Mann's phenomenal soundtrack to create his most engaging work yet. \nNew Line gives "Magnolia" one of its best "platinum" treatments yet on this two-disc DVD set. Disc one features a pristine print with crisp sound that can be switched from stereo surround to 5.1 surround sound. Disc two features some deleted absurdity from the Frank T.J. Mackey seminar, a handful of trailers and the brilliant music video for Mann's "Save Me," directed by Anderson himself. Also included is an entertaining 90 minute documentary on the making of "Magnolia" and a mildly amusing sequence of outtakes that appears after the color bars feature on both discs. \nThe only piece missing from this immaculate DVD package is an Anderson commentary, which he did not find necessary. This minor flaw withstanding, "Magnolia" is still a standout DVD.
(11/17/00 5:00am)
____simple_html_dom__voku__html_wrapper____>This extraordinary work of cinematic art nabbed the Palme d'Or at the 1983 Cannes Film Festival and rightly so. Based off a 1958 Japanese film of the same name, this work weaves a glorious tapestry about a remote village where the old, when they reach 70, are taken to an adjacent mountain to die. A woman approaching this age accepts her fate, while her son struggles with its reality.
(11/17/00 4:29am)
With his third feature, "Magnolia," Paul Thomas (P.T.) Anderson decided to finally hone in on his skills for refined cinematic plagiarism and produce a deeply involving and emotional work. P.T. ends up standing for P.T. Barnum as Anderson orchestrates a gargantuan cast featuring stand-out performances from all, especially Tom Cruise and John C. Reilly, a multi-faceted storyline and Aimee Mann's phenomenal soundtrack to create his most engaging work yet. \nNew Line gives "Magnolia" one of its best "platinum" treatments yet on this two-disc DVD set. Disc one features a pristine print with crisp sound that can be switched from stereo surround to 5.1 surround sound. Disc two features some deleted absurdity from the Frank T.J. Mackey seminar, a handful of trailers and the brilliant music video for Mann's "Save Me," directed by Anderson himself. Also included is an entertaining 90 minute documentary on the making of "Magnolia" and a mildly amusing sequence of outtakes that appears after the color bars feature on both discs. \nThe only piece missing from this immaculate DVD package is an Anderson commentary, which he did not find necessary. This minor flaw withstanding, "Magnolia" is still a standout DVD.
(11/17/00 4:27am)
In 1958, director Orson Welles attempted to make a stateside comeback with this brilliant noirish tale filled with exhilarating visuals and a wicked dose of black humor. Unfortunately, the film failed in the eyes of Universal, its distributor, resulting in Universal destroying some of Welles' original vision via some editing choices. Welles reacted with a 58-page memo detailing changes he wanted to be made. This memo was ignored until two years ago, when Universal decided to go back to utilize Welles' suggestions and release a newly edited version of the film.\nThis DVD presents this new version of the film in anamorphic widescreen format. Also included is the text of the memo and the film's original trailer (which is definitely a nifty trailer to look at). Nothing else but some Universal promotional crappola can be found. No original version of the film is included, which is a costly omission since that is the true version of the film, while this is nothing more than a special edition, a la "Star Wars," with the director not even having a chance to officially do the editing.\nBut it gets worse. Does "Touch of Evil" really need letterboxing? According to various film sources, very little, if any letterboxing is required. Supposedly, some pieces of the frame might be truncated on all sides, resulting in cropped heads and other lost visuals.\nIn the end, this is a DVD not worth owning. Hopefully, Universal will wise up and release a much improved \nversion in the future, with both widescreen and non-widescreen formats and the original version of the film.
(11/17/00 4:02am)
Around 1967 and 1968, a group of African American filmmakers with similar ideas about the questioning of black existence in America found themselves in the fledgling film program at UCLA. There, they collaborated on many works that strayed away from the Hollywood machine and its stereotyping of African Americans in Blaxploitation works such as "Shaft." A mini-movement sprang out of their energies that has since been referred to by many film scholars as "The L.A. Rebellion."\nA mini-film festival entitled "The L.A. Rebellion: Cinema of the Los Angeles School" will recognize this movement Saturday and Sunday. Movies will be screened between 3 and 7 p.m. on both days in Ballantine Hall room 013. All showings are free and open to the public. Free parking is available in upper and lower-level Ballantine lots by placing a City Lights or "L.A. Rebellion" flier on one's car dashboard.\nThe event is co-sponsored by the graduate course Black Cultural Studies (C793), City Lights and the Departments of Communication and Culture, Cultural Studies and American Studies. The films are in video format and were provided by the Black Film Center Archive and the Main Library's Media Reserves.\nSaturday, Haile Gerima's 1976 work "Bush Mama" will start the festival. "Bless Their Little Hearts," Billy Woodberry's 1984 directorial effort, follows. "Bush Mama" is a harrowing chronicle of a mother in the impoverished Watts neighborhood of Los Angeles who does her best to raise her daughter and deal with the loss of her love to crime. In "Bless Their Little Hearts," the patriarch of the Banks household struggles to earn money, resorting to hacking weeds and painting garages for income, resulting in the dissolving of his relationship with his wife.\nSunday, Charles Burnett's "To Sleep with Anger" will screen first, while Julie Dash's 1991 film "Daughters of the Dust" will complete the fest. The 1990 release "To Sleep with Anger" is probably the most high profile work being shown this weekend since Hollywood actor Danny Glover puts his stamp on this film with a wonderfully unnerving performance. "Anger" deals with a closely-knit L.A. family that slowly disintegrates when an old family friend (Glover) shows up on the doorstep. The concluding festival piece, "Daughters of the Dust," is a highly acclaimed piece of celluloid that is a turn-of-the-century tale about the Gullah, slave descendants who held onto their African heritage.\nRoopali Mukherjee, a communications and culture professor who also teaches the Black Cultural Studies course that is sponsoring this festival, finds the "L.A. Rebellion" to be a "very important point in black independent filmmaking."\n"It was a synergistic moment that produced gritty and aesthetically beautifully done movies," she said.\nMukherjee said she believes the festival will be a success if it "increases exposure among students" to films besides those being made in Hollywood and teaches students to have "a film literacy."\nShe said she thinks that students should come out to "L.A. Rebellion" because many will probably not have another opportunity to expand their cinematic horizons with these movies.\n"When students graduate and have nine-to-five jobs, they are never going to have time to see these films," she said. "We want to produce students that want to see more than day to day, normal movies"
(11/09/00 5:00am)
Heavy-handed as Oliver Stone might be, this is his magnum opus. "Natural Born Killers" is a vivid catalogue of how to push cinema to its ultimate extremes with the usage of every film stock known to man, acid-jazz editing and one hell of a soundtrack. Mickey and Mallory Knox are not killing for pure fun; they are killing as an attempt to destroy the hatred that is brewing in every piece of pop culture's junk yard. The greatness of the film lies in their failure to do so. \nUnfortunately, this DVD fails where the film triumphs. First off, it features only the film's Director's Cut, which features extra gore and an ending lacking the umph of Nine Inch Nail's "Burn." The original cut would have served as a good comparison (since Warner Brothers owns the first cut and Trimark owns the director's cut, this DVD dream will probably never come true). Secondly, while the DVD captures the vibrant colors and sounds of the film, dirt specks are sometimes apparent. Finally, the extras are almost exactly the same on the video release. The only notable and disappointing differences are an added commentary track with Stone where he sounds high half the time and the notable deletion of the video for "Burn." \nIn the end, this DVD is worth owning if only to experience one of the greatest films of the 1990s in its best available home-viewing form.
(11/09/00 5:00am)
The ultimate in over-the-top greatness -- James Cagney -- stars in this melodrama oozing with crime and intrigue. Cagney's Rocky Sullivan, which earned him an Oscar nomination and a New York Film Critics Award for best actor, finds himself out of juvenile detention and in cahoots with the Dead End Kids while a former buddy turned priest stands in his maniacal path. \nMichael Curtiz ("Casablanca") directs a story from Rowland Brown (both Curtiz and Brown were also nominated for Oscars) with Humphrey Bogart also starring in a perfectly jarring cinematic experience to start your weekend.
(11/09/00 5:00am)
____simple_html_dom__voku__html_wrapper____>"In the days/When we were swinging from the trees/I was a monkey/Stealing honey from a swarm of bees." Accompanied by a folksy strumming of the guitar, the above lines kick off "Wild Honey," the seventh track off of U2's first album in three years, All That You Can't Leave Behind.
(11/09/00 2:38am)
____simple_html_dom__voku__html_wrapper____>"In the days/When we were swinging from the trees/I was a monkey/Stealing honey from a swarm of bees." Accompanied by a folksy strumming of the guitar, the above lines kick off "Wild Honey," the seventh track off of U2's first album in three years, All That You Can't Leave Behind.
(11/09/00 2:37am)
Heavy-handed as Oliver Stone might be, this is his magnum opus. "Natural Born Killers" is a vivid catalogue of how to push cinema to its ultimate extremes with the usage of every film stock known to man, acid-jazz editing and one hell of a soundtrack. Mickey and Mallory Knox are not killing for pure fun; they are killing as an attempt to destroy the hatred that is brewing in every piece of pop culture's junk yard. The greatness of the film lies in their failure to do so. \nUnfortunately, this DVD fails where the film triumphs. First off, it features only the film's Director's Cut, which features extra gore and an ending lacking the umph of Nine Inch Nail's "Burn." The original cut would have served as a good comparison (since Warner Brothers owns the first cut and Trimark owns the director's cut, this DVD dream will probably never come true). Secondly, while the DVD captures the vibrant colors and sounds of the film, dirt specks are sometimes apparent. Finally, the extras are almost exactly the same on the video release. The only notable and disappointing differences are an added commentary track with Stone where he sounds high half the time and the notable deletion of the video for "Burn." \nIn the end, this DVD is worth owning if only to experience one of the greatest films of the 1990s in its best available home-viewing form.
(11/09/00 2:35am)
The ultimate in over-the-top greatness -- James Cagney -- stars in this melodrama oozing with crime and intrigue. Cagney's Rocky Sullivan, which earned him an Oscar nomination and a New York Film Critics Award for best actor, finds himself out of juvenile detention and in cahoots with the Dead End Kids while a former buddy turned priest stands in his maniacal path. \nMichael Curtiz ("Casablanca") directs a story from Rowland Brown (both Curtiz and Brown were also nominated for Oscars) with Humphrey Bogart also starring in a perfectly jarring cinematic experience to start your weekend.
(11/03/00 9:22pm)
In the strobe-lit, mirror-endowed empty corner of a discotheque, the pieces of a man\'s existence crash to the ground one by one in the calculated chaos of his dance moves that accompany Corona\'s techno-pop work \"Rhythm of the Night.\" All the stagnant conformity of the French Foreign Legion life he has led has been peeled away to reveal the inner insanity of his loneliness. The writhing man, Galoup (superbly performed by Leos Carax-regular Denis Lavant), was Chief Master Sergeant of a group of French Foreign Legionnaires posted in the African locale of Djibouti. Now he is just another man. But this sequence, which serves up the concluding images of Claire Denis\' \"Beau travail,\" is not just any scene; it is a grand representation of man alone from a film that stands out as a rare example of pure cinematic verse. Galoup\'s descent into this madness begins with the arrival of a new legionnaire Sentain (Gregoire Colin). Sentain is a model of prime masculinity; he is handsome, youthful, tall and honorable (he saves a fellow legionnaire\'s life). All of these traits tower over the small, aging and scar-faced Galoup, especially Sentain\'s valor, which has, at least in the mind of Galoup, caught the eye of Commander Bruno Forestier (Michel Subor). Galoup cannot accept such favoritism, with Forestier serving as a pseudo father, resulting in Galoup\'s attempt and failure to destroy Sentain.\n\"Beau travail\" is a film about realities, especially the realities of the legionnaires, Galoup and cinema itself. The grind of the army is transformed into body poetry by Denis and choreographer Bernardo Montet, who show the legion offering their bodies to the sun, spider-walking underneath wire and violently hugging one another.\nGaloup does not accept this sensual reality anymore, though, as he terrorizes himself about a conflict with Sentain that has no actual concrete backing in the movie\'s consciousness. Even the two confrontations that Galoup and Sentain have -- one with them circling around each other\naccompanied by a piece from Benjamin Britten\'s opera \"Billy Budd\" (Denis also casually based the film on the Herman Melville work) and the other in which Sentain punches Galoup in slow motion -- are coated with a subconscious, dream-like sheen.\nIn fact, \"Beau travail\" is essentially an elliptical cinematic fever-dream composed of lushly photographed tableaux (shot by cinematographer Agnes Godard) and minimal dialogue that form a non-linear narrative. This opens the door for multiple interpretations of \"Beau travail,\" a piece of celluloid with rhyme and meter unlike any other film in 2000.
(11/03/00 1:33pm)
____simple_html_dom__voku__html_wrapper____>If Charlie Chaplin and Buster Keaton would have successfully survived up until this point in cinema, it is easy to think this is what they would have created. Arguably Jacques Tati's ("Mr. Hulot's Holiday") masterpiece, "Playtime" transports Monsieur Hulot (Tati himself) through the chaotic reality of a French metropolis as he attempts to keep an appointment.