i should really have liked 'inkheart'. i fall for most films where fantasy is an excuse for some really spectacular special effects. in this case brandan fraser plays a man gifted with the power to make what he reads come true. a fairy tale called inkheart comes alive and takes his wife in leaving a band of murdering villains instead. fraser wants his wife back and some mummy-like action follows. not nearly as lovely as it could have been. brain dead disney silliness is 'high school musical 3' so forgettable. at least the music could have been less annoying.
the french fantasy animation film ' fantastic planet' pits humans against a race of blue giants on a strange planet. the humans are kept as pets while the wild ones live free in an abandoned garden. when one domesticated animal escapes with all the knowledge of the blue people there is a revolution. scientific thought can save the world. a similar sentiment is seen in 'things to come' a 1936 science fiction fantasy. written by h g wells as a polemic of sorts against irrationality and its dangers. the film is set in everytown, where a war breaks out on christmas eve and over a few years the world is plunged into a dark age where tribes battle with one another headed by a chieftain like figure. but somewhere around the Mediterranean scientists, teachers and professionals have evolved an idyllic bastion against this madness. a grey haired wise man arrives in this devastated town as a beacon of a better life spreading his peace gas over the population. everytown then is transformed into a perfect city with a baroque inspired plan and futuristic white high rise living. but as the scientists reach for even greater heights, a sculptor rues the loss of the 'human' and creates a propaganda war against progress. as a rocket shoots towards the sky mad mobs invade the launch pad. good film for my theory of design modernism class.
hiroshi teshigahara's antonio gaudi is a relief. unlike 'my architect' that aims for some profound psychlogical insight from louis kahns work, in this film the buildings speak for themselves by intercutting what might have been gaudis sources with the voluptuous sensuality of gaudis buildings. not having a voiceover telling us what to see was a great help.
i love the moral ambiguity of film noir. in 'force of evil' a brother who has sold his soul to the devil to make a million overnight is confronted by his morally upright, but weak brother who runs a gambling joint. as the lawyer brother tries to make amends for being the black sheep he is consistently snubbed by the older brother. who is good and evil is debateable. the sequences in new york are beautifully shot- wall street deserted in morning light and especially, at the end' the descent to the banks of the river where the body of his brother lies.
more new york sequences (and lovely ones) are in 'the band wagon'. the first being the shoe shine song in the penny arcade on 42nd street where a black man shines fred astaires shoes like a happy slave; and the second the lovely romantic dance in central park with fred astiare and cyd charise. astaire plays a has-been Hollywood star trying to make it big again in a stage version of 'faust' by playing opposite a ballet dancer. the show fails because it is serious. the message being that nothing should be taken seriously- all is airheaded happiness- 'that's entertainment' the world is a stage and the stage is a world.
more airheaded happiness leads to a multiple murders in 'khel khel mein'. rishi kapoor, neetu singh and rakesh roshan play teenagers who love to flirt with danger. one day a prank goes wrong and they are implicated in a crime involving the murder of a jeweller and the evil 'black cobra'. poor aruna irani plays the suffering vamp- 'sherri'- she had to be christian.
1 comment:
I like how in 'The Band Wagon', during the shoeshine song, they have the same background extras walk past repeatedly.
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