I'm neither Jewish nor gay but I found Roberta Cantow's documentary engrossing and psychologically compelling. It hits upon the AIDS epidemic, spiritual practice, cultural identity, and the burden of an idealized past. We follow Steve Stone, a gay man who's furniture building lover Flint parishes from AIDS during the 1980s. Steve feels compelled to keep his dead lover's memory alive by maintaining their exotically decorated home (which he eventually looses) and taking over Flint's custom furniture company. At the same time, he becomes involved in a tolerant synagogue through the influence of a Jewish relative. Steve's a funny guy, both exhibitionistic and philosophical and his seeming paradoxes keep the film fascinating. Cantow has crafted an artful portrait, using clever cut-aways and subtle audio editing.
Reviews
6 Reviews
House of Last Things
(2013)
Bizarre Delight
6 February 2016
An almost constant stream of surprises, "House of Last Things" is a bizarre delight from start to finish. It's never truly frightening but always quizzically intriguing. Though the quasi haunted house story makes "a kind" of sense by the end, I'm glad writer/director Bartlett left enough ambiguity intact to haunt until the next viewing (I've seen it twice now and appreciate all the cross referencing, time and space shifts and symbolic details - much care went into this). All the actors do a decent job, particularly the otherworldly little boy. Extremely impressive cinematography and transitions. Those looking for a straight genre exercise will most likely be frustrated by the oblique fragmented story however that is precisely the kind of film I love. Also, it isn't easy to make golf courses and yellow balloons threatening.
Alex in Wonderland
(1970)
Plodding with occasional inspired scenes
2 November 2015
I'm very fond of films made from the late 1960s through the mid 1970s for their experimental attempts to get beyond genre conventions. I had fully expected "Alex in Wonderland" to be an overlooked psychedelic gem. While the film does have some amazing hallucinatory set-pieces (the most elaborate, a violent war in Hollywood with soldiers firing into a crowd while 2 men in top hats and tails dance on a flaming station wagon to the tune "Hooray for Hollywood"), most of the action is plodding. Donald Sutherland as Alex, goes off on many travels and tangents to entertain ideas for his next directorial effort. None of the episodic scenes build on each other and aside for gloriously lensed shots (by Laszló Kovács) of Sutherland in full hippie regalia walking introspectively in a variety of locations, there is little cumulative insight.
Skidoo
(1968)
Attempt to be "hip" and "wacky"
3 September 2014
Warning: Spoilers
A self conscious attempt to be "hip" and "wacky," the film is unfortunately wed to an unfunny mobster story and shot stiffly with no momentum. There are a few worthy bits of oddness however. Jackie Gleason's LSD trip and Carol Channing whole heartedly belting out the title song during an exceedingly dumb ending scene where a flotilla of hippies and a hot air balloon converge on Groucho Marx's yacht, where despite all the bullets being fired by Groucho's bodyguards, no one gets shot. Skidoo probably wouldn't be viewed at all if it weren't for the classic Hollywood stars involved. The trailer, hosted by Otto Preminger's LSD guru Tim Leary, is actually more funny and interesting as it blatantly panders to the youth market. You wonder if Leary actually liked the movie, just did it out of friendship for Preminger, or for a good pay off.
Under a Shipwrecked Moon
(2003)
Visionary drama
16 August 2010
Though the story itself is strong and the performances convincing, what I most love about this one is its visual power which is remarkable for such a low budget feature. It takes for its drama the return of Esko, an elderly man from Finland to visit his estranged family in the United States to bring them gifts. Upon his arrival he collapses and is sent to an emergency room. The family visits Esko in the hospital and his presence brings to the surface long suppressed conflicts and dreams. A young man who experiments with ritual and drugs is convinced his grandfather is a shaman and has dreams about a mysterious woman (played by Sylvi Alli) who appears to initiate and guide him. The young man's mother has resurfaced resentments of abandonment. Esco's bitter uncle demands to be paid back a loan from long ago and is rebuked by the young man. In recurring symbolic scenes ravens and hedgehogs are mythic rivals: the ravens gamblers and the hedgehogs stubborn, repressive -- and prickly. The remarkable final scene brings together all the principle characters at a dinner when the old man's gifts are opened and reveal a few meaningful surprises.
Fellini Satyricon
(1969)
The high point of Fellini's career
8 January 2010
This was the first Fellini film that I saw back in 1974 or so. It was a midnight screening in Westwood in Cinemascope on a giant screen. I had seldom been so effected by a film. It was so overwhelming, I went back the very next midnight for another look. The sheer amount of detail and striking bizarre symbolic compositions continued to overwhelm me. It became my favorite film for a number of years and I must have seen it with various friends about 30 times in theaters. How can I summarize such a work of art? It's a subconscious spectacle, a view of humanity through a fun house mirror in an alternate universe. Though later I became a fan of Fellini's previous and subsequent films, Satyricon remained my favorite and I regard it as THE high-point in Fellini's career. Never has his fertile imagination delved as deeply as here. Unlike so much of Fellini's output, this is not a personal autobiographical film but instead an archetypal film. Fellini even had a Jungian analyst on the set while shooting.
For those who haven't experienced it, Satyricon is a loose adaptation of the oldest surviving novel of the same name by Petronius Arbiter, a Roman from the time of Nero, who wrote a sprawling series of satirical and bawdy stories . The novel only survived in fragments and Fellini decided when adapting the tales to not try and patch up the narrative but instead present a series of highly detailed episodes. This fit into his view of history. We only know history (particularly ancient history) from bits and pieces passed down through the ages. Though the three lead characters reappear throughout the film, the other characters, situations and locales around them change unexpectedly. Now, while these picaresque episodes are indeed exotic, weird and funny, it is Fellini's vision that makes this film unique viewing. In particular is his roaming camera that is intricately choreographed and put to great use in large group scenes. Though we take moving camera as standard practice today, it really wasn't used nearly as much in the 1960s and Fellini had a distinctive way of shooting action and character gesture that still stands out as his own. Certain sequences (particularly the red light district near the beginning) feel as though we are on some kind of dark ride, gliding past a series of rooms containing all manner of curiosities. Another very striking technique is to have a few of the characters stare into the camera, generally a "no no" in all but documentaries. The effect creates a curious confrontation as the characters stare impassively — watching us as we watch them
The music for Satyricon is another fascinating element. Though Nino Rota composed a substantial amount of the score (particularly the oddly phrased melody heard at the end and the new emperors parade), a great deal of the music is either world folk music (such as the Balinese Monkey Chant) or avant garde electronic compositions (Ilhan Mimaroglu, Andrew Rudin, and Todd Dockstader among others). This gives the film a dual feeling of being very primal and yet otherworldly.
On one level Satryicon comments on the youth of the late 1960s, the unanchored hippies wondering from place to place without a "moral compass" -- one hedonistic adventure after another in a satiated and decadent world. On another level the world depicted is a collective dream of which our civilization is puppet-ed by primal forces beneath the surface. In this way Satyricon feels both foreign and recognizable, its images both seductive and repellent. One can admire Fellini for tackling such an ambitious concept and it is due to he and his collaborators (particularly Danilo Donati) that this film achieves so much.
For those who haven't experienced it, Satyricon is a loose adaptation of the oldest surviving novel of the same name by Petronius Arbiter, a Roman from the time of Nero, who wrote a sprawling series of satirical and bawdy stories . The novel only survived in fragments and Fellini decided when adapting the tales to not try and patch up the narrative but instead present a series of highly detailed episodes. This fit into his view of history. We only know history (particularly ancient history) from bits and pieces passed down through the ages. Though the three lead characters reappear throughout the film, the other characters, situations and locales around them change unexpectedly. Now, while these picaresque episodes are indeed exotic, weird and funny, it is Fellini's vision that makes this film unique viewing. In particular is his roaming camera that is intricately choreographed and put to great use in large group scenes. Though we take moving camera as standard practice today, it really wasn't used nearly as much in the 1960s and Fellini had a distinctive way of shooting action and character gesture that still stands out as his own. Certain sequences (particularly the red light district near the beginning) feel as though we are on some kind of dark ride, gliding past a series of rooms containing all manner of curiosities. Another very striking technique is to have a few of the characters stare into the camera, generally a "no no" in all but documentaries. The effect creates a curious confrontation as the characters stare impassively — watching us as we watch them
The music for Satyricon is another fascinating element. Though Nino Rota composed a substantial amount of the score (particularly the oddly phrased melody heard at the end and the new emperors parade), a great deal of the music is either world folk music (such as the Balinese Monkey Chant) or avant garde electronic compositions (Ilhan Mimaroglu, Andrew Rudin, and Todd Dockstader among others). This gives the film a dual feeling of being very primal and yet otherworldly.
On one level Satryicon comments on the youth of the late 1960s, the unanchored hippies wondering from place to place without a "moral compass" -- one hedonistic adventure after another in a satiated and decadent world. On another level the world depicted is a collective dream of which our civilization is puppet-ed by primal forces beneath the surface. In this way Satyricon feels both foreign and recognizable, its images both seductive and repellent. One can admire Fellini for tackling such an ambitious concept and it is due to he and his collaborators (particularly Danilo Donati) that this film achieves so much.
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