Poltergeist.
The Freelings are a typical, suburban American family, living in their quiet, little, white bred, redneck, mountain town of Cuesta Verde, California. The patriarch, Steve, falls asleep in front of the TV one night; his youngest daughter, Carol Anne, wakes up, walks downstairs to the now off-air, static-showing TV and begins talking to the screen. Diane, Steve’s wife and Carol Anne’s mother, believes her daughter was simply sleepwalking, as she used to when she was a child. When a storm rolls in a few nights later, Carol Anne and her brother, Robbie, flee their lightning filled rooms to find comfort in their parents’ bed. With all four asleep, the TV in Steve and Diane’s bedroom goes off air and begins broadcasting static. Carol Anne wakes up, crawls to the end of the bed and up to the TV; when asked what she’s doing by a now awake Diane, Carole Anne utters those infamous words… “They’re here.” Everything about Tobe Hooper’s (and alleged “co-director” Steven Spielberg’s) Poltergeist is fundamentally unsettling: the clown doll that stares at Robbie at night, the tree outside his window, the sight and sound of static television, Jerry Goldsmith’s atmospheric score, the silences in between, even Heather O’Rourke (Carol Anne) herself. Poltergeist’s pacing ratchets up the terror without being over-reliant on jump scares, punctuated by some genuinely funny moments to make you feel at ease, before descending into ghoulish anarchy. A few moments of dodgy CGI are made up for by some ingenious special effects in what is a genuinely scary movie: I’m writing this with all my lights on.
Koyaanisqatsi.
Ominous organ music plays while a deep voice chants the film’s title. Still images of cave paintings fade into a close up of a rocket launch. A vast expanse of rock formations in the American Southwest are viewed from above, before close ups highlight the detail and history embedded in the rocks. I could continue to list the visuals of Koyaanisqatsi, but to do so would be a disservice to the images director Godfrey Reggio compiled, and cinematographer Ron Fricke shot. Phillip Glass’ minimalist score compliments the images perfectly; creating an exhaustive pace during time-lapses of insignificant swarms amongst monolithic skyscrapers and endless streets, slowing the tempo to reflect on the people, their stories, backgrounds, eccentricities, jobs, hobbies, problems, addictions and personalities. What begins as a collage of breathtaking natural beauty, (d)evolves into a genuinely upsetting indictment of humanity’s impact on the world; one can’t help but marvel at the human ability not only to build but to destroy, the planet and each other, at such scale. While Koyaanisqatsi serves as a time capsule of 1980s America (the fashions, arcades, movie theatres and manual labour jobs that have since been replaced by our soon to be robot overlords), it’s worrying to imagine how much more of our planet has been destroyed in the intervening years, considering the other “advancements” that have been made since 1982: expanding cities, increased air travel, more roads, oil rigs, weaponry (nuclear or otherwise) and so on. The meaning of the word Koyaanisqatsi is revealed at the very end, and while it’s true that you what you take from the film is what you bring to it, if you have trouble relating to the definition then you need to take a good hard look at yourself.
Querelle.
The French town of Brest. The Feria bar. The owner, Nono, his wife, Lysiane, and her lover, Robert. Lysiane reads tarot cards for Robert, revealing that his brother, the titular sailor Querelle, is in danger of finding himself. Querelle visits the bar while his ship is in port with the intention of arranging an opium deal with Nono; Querelle and Robert embrace when they meet, but they also alternate punches to one another in the stomach. Nono offers patrons to the bar, including Querelle, a game decided on a dice roll: win and you can sleep with his wife; lose and you must submit to him. What transpires is a story of murder, life, homoeroticism, heteroeroticism (is that a word?), love, hate, violence, tenderness, selfishness, selflessness; ultimately a story of duality, summarised eloquently by Jeanne Moreau’s aching “Each Man Kills the Thing He Loves”. Watching Rainer Werner Fassbinder’s Jean Genet adaptation is a surreal, dreamlike experience: beautiful cinematography of sets bathed in orange; the sexual nature of those very same sets (I saw angels cocks in the architecture); the entire film taking place in essentially a single location; the unnatural manner of speech, whether that be the sometimes Shakespearean dialogue whereby characters speak in metaphor (huh?), or the frank, coarse words that follow in the very next exchange (oh!). Is it brilliant, or is it terrible? I haven’t stopped thinking about it. Need to watch it again. Probably brilliant then.
Tenebre.
Acclaimed horror writer, Peter Neal, travels to Rome to promote his new book: (the (somewhat) titular) Tenebrae. Shortly before his arrival, a young woman is caught shoplifting a copy; she agrees to meet the shop’s owner later to “pay” for the book, but she is murdered by a masked assailant before their meeting. The murderer stuffs pages of Tenebrae into her mouth and delivers a letter to Neal’s hotel room, revealing that Neal’s work is an inspiration for their crime and that they intend to kill again. Self proclaimed Neal fanatic, Police captain Germani, and his assistant, Inspector Altieri, soon question Neal, realising that they will need his help solving the murder and stopping the possible future spree. Inspired by a real life stalker who threatened to kill Dario Argento, claiming that his works had driven him insane, the writer-director here questions the impact of art and whether it can kill. Peter Neal served as a direct reflection of Argento himself, facing the same criticisms he did in his career: he’s a sick, misogynist, criminal who considers women as mere objects for murder while men are heroes (“macho bullshit”). Often tense, often gory and often unintentionally hilarious (due to some weird dialogue delivered in badly dubbed monotones), this sexploitation-spaghetti-mystery-slasher-thriller (or giallo if you prefer) was considered a “video nasty” in the UK and was banned from video stores until 1999. For that, and the mysterious electronica/disco/rock soundtrack, Tenebrae is a certified classic.
Fitzcarraldo.
Darkest Peru. A man dressed all in white drags his female companion to a majestic, and equally white, opera house. Despite rowing for two days and nights, he is late for the performance; security initially refuse him entry for this once in a lifetime experience, but eventually help sneak him in as they are equally as curious to see the spectacle that has captivated and silenced the crowd in attendance. The man in white is Brian Sweeney Fitzgerald, or Fitzcarraldo to the Spanish speaking locals, who has but one dream: to build an opera house in the Peruvian jungle. There is little interest in opera, however, in a working class area that is experiencing rapid growth due to the rubber production of the indigenous trees. There is a bigger problem however: rubber may grow on trees but opera houses don’t. To what extremes will Fitz go to realise his dream? Klaus Kinski (separating the art from the artist) is one half of the driving force behind Fitzcarraldo, capturing the anxieties, eccentricities and passionate enthusiasm of the title character. The other half being Werner Herzog’s vision (the set and costume designs create visuals that are nothing short of spectacular), direction and sheer will to get this film made. A fascinating feature about a man’s obsession, the lengths he would go, and the obstacles he needs to overcome to see his dream fulfilled.
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