6: No Fear, No Die (a.k.a. S'en Fout la Mort – Original French title)

            No Fear, No Die (1990) is the third film I’ve seen by director Claire Denis.  Her Beau Travail (1999; #65) didn’t quite work for me (but its final shot is masterful), and her recent White Material (2009; which I came across as part of my Criterion quest) seemed to be missing something as well.  Still, I’ve picked up on some consistent themes in her work which I like, and which I hope she continues to embrace.  She seems particularly fond of outsiders (not losers, who John Hughes* loved, but outsiders) and her fascination with process is somewhat marvelous.  No Fear, No Die, like her other films, seems to embrace the “somewhat” there.  As a director, Denis seems to be consciously restraining herself from falling in love with these outsiders and with their processes, and I think this might be why I just don’t love any of her work.

            Dah (Isaach De Bankolé) and Jocelyn (Alex Descas) are her outsiders here.  Dah is a West Indian Native and Jocelyn has emigrated from Benin.  Both appear to be in France illegally, but no dialogue in the film confirms this.  Both of their pasts seem like stereotypes, and I suspect this is what Denis wanted; too many details and the audience would focus on their lives before, and not the here and now.  They are in France, it seems, for one reason: cockfighting.  The script lets on that they have worked together before, and that they need to make a lot of money fast to get out of some sort of trouble.  Dah, like all movie criminals, is convinced that this is the scheme that will put them in the black.  He’s the one with the head for angles and details; Jocelyn knows the game and the birds. 

            A white man named Pierre, who knew Jocelyn as a child in Africa, has asked him now to help him start up a cockfighting ring.  The plan, they all believe, is simple enough: host the game, take bets, train ringers, and count the money as it rolls in.  Dah works the logistics, Jocelyn will train the roosters, and Pierre will provide the room.  The location as it turns out will be in the basement of Pierre’s suburban nightclub, perhaps one of the strangest movie locations I can recall.  The whole place looks like a deserted airport, and we hardly see anyone there for any reason other than the cockfights.  One gets the sense that Pierre may not be the most adept club owner.  He seems to have other problems to focus on, including a young wife, Toni, who he barely speaks to and a contemptible adult son, Michel, who he doesn’t know has eyes for her.

            The arrangements are all made.  Dah and Jocelyn will live with the birds in the basement while the underground publicity can be drummed up.  Dah buys the groceries and fixes the meals while Jocelyn works with the birds.  The film’s best scenes involve this routine.  Music – always Bob Marley or hip hop – blasts from the stereo.  Jocelyn manipulates the roosters to improve their agility and aggression.  He believes that cockfighting is an art form.  Dah paces, complains, and tries to read, but he is a man who seems unable to stay still.  Jocelyn likes the birds more than he cares for his partner most days. 

            The rooster their betting big on is called S'en Fout la Mort.  Jocelyn thinks he can beat any bird in the circuit, but he doesn’t want him involved in the gimmick fights, where the cocks are equipped with razor blades on their feet in order to increase the damage of each blow and decrease the time of the fights.  He’s a traditionalist.  Dah doesn’t care much either way.  Winning fights and adding to the bank roll are his only concerns.  Things, however, get complicated when Michel begins to make moves on Toni.  Any upsetting of the status quo could throw off the profits, as the somewhat erratic Pierre might shut the game down if he were to find out.  The situation is further complicated when word of S'en Fout la Mort’s success begins to bring in legitimate challengers.

            I suspect you know that there is more going on in No Fear, No Die than I’m letting on, but these few details should help you decide whether or not it’s worth your time.  Much of the appreciation for the film centers on its implication about the status of black immigrants, and the power struggles represented by Dah and Jocelyn’s relationship with Pierre.  In both gambling and prostitution – probably the two most exploitive entities of human existence – the house always gets a cut.  Essentially, walls and a roof provided for the purpose of vice to be carried on within them are an investment that is expected to generate lucrative returns.  Pierre may be out of his league, but he’s determined to make it in this racket.  Exploiting two illegal aliens doesn’t matter to him.

            While this economic exploitation seems to be the pinpoint of most of the critical praise for the film, I think that perhaps it undercuts a much better narrative avenue.  The social consequences for Dah and Jocelyn are never really explored.  Yes, they are forced to keep mostly to themselves in the nightclub basement, but neither ever vocalizes any discontent with their living arrangements.  Jocelyn is too focused on the birds, as well as Toni, to be dissatisfied by the set-up, and Dah seems to care only about making money.  In this respect, they both seem like one-dimensional characters, with only their occasional disputes about the music and the fight nights punctuating their existence.  We never really know how they feel about their situation; we just know what they think.

If it was Denis’ intention to focus on the process of training the birds, as I suspect it was, then she succeeds on this level.  But she never really gives us reasons why this rather deplorable activity appeals to any of the participants.  We suspect that Dah doesn’t really care how the money is made (perhaps a clue about how desperate he is too make it), and that Jocelyn comes from a line of cockfighting trainers, but no solid explanation of the betting process or the draw of the blood sport is ever given.  Again, maybe this is the point.  During one fight, Dah’s voiceover tells us that even he gets emotional when one of his birds is in the ring, but it feels more like an excuse than an explanation of legitimate excitement. 

This had to be a difficult film to make.  A disclaimer at the film’s conclusion tells us that no birds were injured or mistreated during production, which is certainly admirable, but difficult to believe in consideration of the material.  This logistic problem was mirrored by a thematic one.  How do you make a film about cockfighting without a) glorifying it, and b) going into full campiness?  The answer to “a” is by making it obvious that this is a subculture populated by sleaze balls.  Check.  The answer to “b” is more difficult.  This movie easily could have been dismissed.  Heck, I was thinking of using “Cocky” (possibly needing some roman numerals to drive home the joke) in my review about five minutes in.  Denis avoids camp with directorial class though, by focusing on the human characters.  I just wish she’d given me more of them.

Language: French

Runtime: 90 minutes

Grade: 2 Hats Off                              

*second John Hughes reference in as many reviews … no explanation

7: Red Psalm (a.k.a. Psaume Rouge, a.k.a. Még kér a nép – Original Hungarian title)

Just about everything I’ve read about Miklós Jancsó’s Red Psalm (1971) notes the director’s use of nudity in the film (the French DVD version even has a bare-breasted young woman prominently featured in the cover art).  Though none of my research has specifically noted it, I suspect that this was one of the first modern eastern bloc films to expose such brazen amounts of skin.  While this may be important in that it broke down the barriers of cinematic art in its time and place, Jancsó and Red Psalm don’t really cover any new ground metaphorically with their exhibition.  Nudity in art has always symbolized vulnerability, and here it clearly mirrors the unprotected farmers of a Hungarian agricultural community who strike against the practices of their landlord.  The workers have no protection but their ideals, and such things often fail to stop bullets.  

            As the film opens, just over 100 farmers, their wives, and children have gathered on the plains to stage their protest.  Their clothes, tools, and instruments denote that this is the close of the 19^th century.  The dissent begins merrily, with big talk, music, and dancing, but the swift arrival of a cavalry unit called in by the landlord quickly establishes the gravity of the farmers’ decision.  Three young women strip their clothes as a sign of resistance to the tyranny of their oppressors.  The songs and the discussions continue amongst the group as tensions with a few mounted officers begin to rise.  If the protest comes to a halt, all will be forgiven the group is told, but many farmers mistrust this promise of peaceful resolution.  In just 27 shots, which run over the course of under 90 minutes, this conflict, which appears to exist in the span of only a few hours, will reach its inevitable conclusion.  I say “inevitable” because something is evident right from the beginning with Red Psalm: this is not a movie of characters, but rather a film of the collective.  I couldn’t recall a single character name as the picture ended, and I wondered whether I’d even bothered to learn them during the movie.

            I suspected that this was because many of the gathered individuals have Hungarian names with no clear English counterpart.  A quick look at the IMDb confirmed this, but I’m not so sure that Jancsó wanted even a Hungarian audience to remember one specific character so much as he wanted the struggle and sacrifice of the group to be the prominent focus.  Indeed, I remember several events in the film clearly, but little about any individual.  Jancsó is intentional in his methods.  Reactions, close-ups, and shot/reverse shot editing wouldn’t have served his purpose.  His few shots are comprised of calculated camera movements that seem to float between sub-groups and conversations.  In this way, Jancsó reminds me of a Hungarian Robert Altman.  One gets the feeling that he somehow saw M*A*S*H (1970) before making this film.  Years later, his fellow Hungarian, Béla Tarr would perfect this ethereal movement between subjects and dialogues in cold black and white films such as Satantango (1994) and Werckmeister Harmonies (2000). 

Here Jancsó uses color like Altman, not for artistic ends, but rather to evoke the reality of the conflict.  It happens on a plain that could be anywhere, to farmers who could be any type of worker, with soldiers who might be the strong arm of any oppressive force.  It is a story of generalities which are representative of the principles of Marxism, and therefore must appear for Jancsó’s purposes to be told in the context of the real.  Black and white would have evoked a specific plain, in a specific nation, and a specific conflict.  It would have called for opening title cards with a date and a region.  By comparison, think of Tarr’s films, which feel like they could take place nowhere but where they do.  This would be wrong for Jancsó’s Red Psalm. 

            If it were my movie, (which of course it isn’t) I would have made different choices.  Films about the collective usually fail in my estimation because groups often bring out the worst in us (See the films made by the Russians just after the revolution for examples).  As an audience, we want to see films about individuals who stand up against the cries of the masses; who rise above to become something greater.  The best films about groups are often dependant on one character emerging as a leader, beating both the odds and personal demons to seize the day and embody what the group needs.  When this doesn’t happen, at least for Western audiences, something feels off.  War movies about a squad on a dangerous mission, Westerns that involve a posse, ensemble high school movies written by John Hughes, and any film about a band or a sports team essentially works on this principle; both the good of the group and the story will be served in those moments when an individual is singled out by the narrative to explain his or her purpose in life and in that context (e.g. the war, the search, the tour, the game, and specifically the jury room in 12 Angry Men (1957))  These moments are altogether absent from Red Psalm, and thus, while I enjoyed its craft, I cared little for its story, its characters, or its meaning.     

                    

Language: Hungarian

Runtime: 87 Minutes

Grade: 1.5 Hats Off

8: The Housemaid (Hanyo – Original Korean title)

            I faced two dilemmas as I thought about beginning my review of Kim Ki-Young’s The Husemaid (1960).  On a secondary level, I wasn’t sure whether or not I should view the 2010 remake of the film.  That version has been stored in my DVR for months now, as I debated seeing it before the original, fearing that I might never find a copy.  Once again, the lifeblood of this quest that is YouTube delivered, and it became obvious that seeing the remake wasn’t necessary.  This film should stand on its own merits.  That is a principle of criticism and should be respected, of course, but it just so happens that this movie doesn’t need any other leg to stand on – dilemma averted. 

            My primary concern still remains: I simply do not know how to categorize this work.  Now, before I lose you (dear reader) let me state emphatically that this film does not fit the cliché of “defying genre.”  It is a drama with morose and even morbid overtones, probably a precursor to the psychological thriller, but tonally it never fully steps outside of any bounds not laid down by Hitchcock (though it does exceed the limits of the Hollywood production code that limited Hitch for most of his career).  The 1001 text notes that there is a dash of Buñuel in here as well, and it is correct, but the American film that this Korean picture most closely resembles is What Ever Happened to Baby Jane? (made two years later, in 1962, by Robert Aldrich).  In both movies a complex, multi-level set is employed to invoke a system of hierarchy reliant on emotional and psychological power, and in both films this technique is wildly successful.

            Mr. Kim appears at first to be a minor character in his own story.  He works as a music teacher for a company that offers clubs such as a choir as after-hours recreation for their female workers in order to reduce opportunities for labor organization.  Many of the women find him attractive, but obligation to his family and a fear of being fired prevent him from ever acting on these crushes.  One day he receives a love letter from one of his students.  He notifies the company of the incident, and the girl is fired.  When she later commits suicide his guilt is overwhelming.  To atone, he offers a friend of the woman a favor.  She wants another female worker out of the factory, and he offers to take the woman on as a housemaid.  He’s in the process of building a large modern home for his wife and two children, and he believes that hired help will be beneficial as both domestic aid and social status elevator. 

            When the maid arrives, she is neither polite, nor particularly helpful.  Mr. Kim doesn’t much care for her attitude, or her chain smoking, but the friend to whom he feels he owes the favor makes frequent visits in the form of requests for piano lessons.  He doesn’t want to let her down, so he does all he can to keep up appearances.  His wife is pregnant with their third child, his daughter is partially paralyzed, and his son is a brat.  One more stressor won’t break him.  This status quo is maintained for several months, but in a moment of weakness, when his wife is away visiting family, he is seduced by the housemaid.  He regrets his actions, and momentarily believes that they can be swept under the rug, but when the woman announces that she is pregnant, he is trapped.  He tells his wife that he is the father, expecting for her to demand a divorce, but she refuses to give up the house and the comfortable life they have built and to be shammed by his actions.  She insists that the maid be kept on, and that appearances continue to be kept up.

            This story could play as unbearable melodrama, but director Kim knows he has better emotions to work with here.  Together in the house these characters will be forced to come to terms or to blows, and the director knows that the drama lies in the question of if and when an incident will destroy the equilibrium.  Time and again as the situation progresses plausible solutions or opportunities for relief present themselves, and each time characters’ attempts to redirect the situation for their own benefit backfire.  Questions arise.  With whom will Mr. Kim Sleep?  How will either of the new children be welcomed?  Will the existing children suspect? 

            The set here really does play an important role.  It represents both everything that Mrs. Kim is unwilling to part with, and, with its varying narrow spaces, deep rooms, and sliding doors, the elements that both unite and divide the unusual family.  Hallways and shared balconies connect and separate various pairings, and in the middle of it all, the stairs partition those in power from those who serve.  The level on which the figure of authority resides however is constantly in shift.  Music from the piano on the second floor regularly fills the house, but the varying fingers from which these notes spring forth often dictates its mood.

            There is nothing on the surface level of this film that is in and of itself creepy, but when you look at the characters and their motivations suddenly it becomes eerie.  Why do they all act as they do?  Are material possessions and appearances that important?  Is power over someone you loath that addicting?   Can satisfaction be found in one’s self simply knowing that you’ve deprived others of it?  And why is the daughter on crutches?  Does she have to be more ostensibly pathetic for the audience to sympathize with the family?  Or is this just another element of the film meant to make us realize that life is not fair? 

            In some movies, this many questions would mean a failure.  Here they note a resounding, albeit cynical, success.  The Housemaid is a film for anyone interested in examinations of the human capacity for cruelty, but devoid of any desire to see the Saw series.  Here the torture is on the inside, where it can really hurt.  It’s also a darn good piece of filmmaking from a technical standpoint.  The production design team delivers in spades a setting for twisted drama, and Kim (the director, not the character) uses every angle of their work to heighten the dramatic action in his.

Language: Korean

Runtime: 111 Minutes

Available@YouTube.com

Grade: 3.5 Hats Off               

9: The Cool World

            (Single Digits!) Having scoured the net for years, I was beginning to think that Shirley Clarke’s The Cool World (1964) was out of my reach.  Then the YouTube gods delivered cinemanna from heaven.  Clarke’s stark portrayal of Harlem street life and the youth culture of gangs in the ghetto is a remarkably entertaining landmark film, and it deserves to be rescued from obscurity.  Not only is it enjoyable, it has snob credit to boot.  As the first independently financed film to be screened at the Venice Film Festival, and the first screen credit for noted documentarian Frederick Wiseman, this movie should be available on DVD at every library in America.  Sadly though, Wiseman (who served as producer on the picture three years before his directorial debut) holds the rights to the film under his Zipporah Films label, and has announced no plans to release it in any home video format (An “educational” VHS copy is available for purchase for $400).  What a pity.

            What viewers are missing is nothing short of the bridge between the French New Wave and Mean Streets (1973).  Duke (Rony Clayton) is a young tuff who’s eager to get his gang, the Pythons, back in the game of running the streets in Harlem.  Their chief rivals for territory are the Wolves, who are mostly anonymous figures in printed jackets.  Duke is sure that he can bring the Pythons back to days of past glory, if only he can acquire a “piece.”  Monologues set to the haunting jazz score of Mal Waldon betray his single-minded obsession as he walks beneath the elevated train and through the basketball courts on every other block.  He’s sure he can get the gun from a smalltime hustler, Priest (Carl lee), who used to run with the Pythons, but he needs fifty dollars to make the purchase.    

            Meanwhile, another member of the gang, Blood (Clarence Williams III, later of Mod Squad fame), secures an apartment, by essentially kicking his father out, for the Pythons to use as their clubhouse.  Shortly after the takeover, Priest pimps out a prostitute for exclusive use by the gang and proposes a system of installments in order for the fifty dollars to be raised.  Tensions with the wolves always seem to be on the rise, as is Duke’s obsession with organizing a rumble where he can employ the gun, but onscreen encounters are few and far between.  Clearly Clarke is implying that it is the boys’ preoccupation with violence, rather than a spirit of retaliation for legitimate territorial offenses, that leads to aggressive criminal acts.

            The decision to focus on Duke, giving the audience access to both his inner monologue and his private conversations with the prostitute (Yolanda Rodríguez), Priest’s lonely alcoholic girlfriend, and a number of other friends, makes the experience of The Cool World not a sweeping statement about gangs or crime, but a deeply personal look at a young man for whom such a lifestyle does not seem out of the ordinary.  His world is full of Priests, as well as guys with names like Angel, Warrior, and Savage.  Is it strange that the gang nicknames seem to balance the religious and the deadly?  In an environment where no earthly authority persists, God and crime seem like the only reality.  Teachers and cops don’t mean a damn thing.  What do they know of the world?

            The film however does not resort to the cliché default that these boys are trapped in an environment beyond their control.  The subway is right there.  A ticket to Brooklyn, to Coney Island and the ocean, where Duke takes the prostitute on a sort of date, isn’t out of reach.  They make the choice to stay in the slums because the challenge of becoming something there, by violent means when necessary, is more appealing than taking the strait way out.  They don’t want to escape the streets, they want to rule them. 

            In a way Shirley Clarke made a similar decision.  She was a talented filmmaker who it is my understanding was courted by Hollywood (a rarity for a woman in the 1960s).  She decided instead to remain true to her independent principles.  Having signed the "Statement for a New American Cinema" in 1961, she went on to win an Academy Award for Best Documentary Feature in 1963 for a portrait of poet Robert Frost.  Though not a documentary, The Cool World feels like a slice of reality, even if you’ve never been to Harlem (which I haven’t).  Clarke wanted to make her films on location and use naturalistic actors and dialogue, something Hollywood wasn’t yet fully embracing in the early 60s.  The Cool World encountered trouble with the New York film censorship authorities, and was never released to a wide audience, but it’s clear that its influence was a ripple effect in filmmaking on the whole.  Within a decade of its release a number of commercially successful films about New York street life would surface.  Unfortunately, this influential film remains largely unseen.

Language: English

Runtime: 105 Minutes

Available @YouTube.com

Grade: 3.5 Hats Off