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So it's the month of Halloween and, predictably, I'm writing an article about horror films. Since I'm sure your DVD store's copy of The Exorcist is currently sitting there in dread, awaiting what is possibly its millionth Halloween DVD night, I thought I’d rather submit a post that’s a little more off-beat…
Even within the context of cult cinema itself--which is already a contest of the bizarre--let alone in the context of mainstream horror, Dellamorte Dellamore and Santa Sangre are two beautiful, shiny gem-like red herrings. Now these two films aren't exactly what might unanimously be agreed to demonstrate the pinnacle of aesthetic sublimity, and yet they are challenging films in their own right, tinged with a peculiar visual style and mood that defies the strict categorisation imposed by genre and imbued with a seemingly incompatible yet effective blend of genuine Romanticism and self-reflexive irony.
Based on Tiziano Sclavi's Dylan Dog graphic novel series, director Michele Soavi's odd-ball anomaly of a film Dellamorte Dellamore is set for the most part within the confines of an Italian small-town cemetary and chronicles the social isolation of the protagonist, the pretentiously and dramatically titled Francesco Dellamorte, surprisingly played by well-known actor Rupert Everett (who apparently inspired Sclavi's original protagonist). Francesco spends his life casually observing the lives of others turn to dust while he goes about his routine job as Buffalora's local cemetery keeper with only his naïve, mute hunchback sidekick Gnaghi (François Hadji-Lazaro) for company. That is, until in the tradition of most films set in cemeteries, the dead start rising from the grave and walking around in a hilarious parody of their former breathing selves and a beautiful young widow known only as 'She' (Anna Falchi) catches Francesco's eye and goes through a series of reincarnations.
The fascinating thing about Dellamorte Dellamore is its fine balance between erotic horror thriller, black comedy, social satire and serious meditative drama. Now I'm aware that these claims may sound suspicious as such descriptions are often used in defense of many a mediocre pornographic B-movie disguising itself as something more. However, it is definitely not the case with this movie, which transcends the limitations of its low budget via Soavi's highly aesthetic eye. As Dario Argento's protégé, Soavi's visual style is clearly influenced by the well-known Italian cult director, yet he succeeds in creating his own unique mood which imbues scenes with a melancholy and eerie beauty that tones down Argento's savage style and makes way for a tone which is more aligned with Francesco's Romantic mind-set. Yet the film also often reflects ironically upon itself, and we begin to intuit that Francesco's narcissistic isolation within the almost dream-like feel created by cinematographer Mauro Marchetti is a cover for his need to strike out at a less-than-ideal society. Still, the quiet and contemplative figure of Francesco strolling through an autumn-tinged daylight world and a misty night time within set designer Massimo Antonello Gelleng's stylized and lavishly designed sets is always more appealing to the viewer than the drab town outside its gates-- one populated by neurotic, fluttering politicians and an array of ridiculous yapping caricatures…..“The more they laugh, the further away they seem. You can never be too different, Gnaghi”, bemuses Francesco as he condescendingly ignores the (false) rumours surrounding his alleged impotence running through the ears of the vulgar town's folk.
The movie is essentially composed of purely cult humour which rather than being camp itself, possesses an intuitively camp sensibility. Combine this factor with scenes which are pretentiously artistic in their visual approach and you have Dellamorte Dellamore, an odd mixture of philosophical ruminations about life and death captured in highly quotable one-liners such as “I'd give my life to be dead”, a bizarre necrophilic yet naïve love affair between a re-animated disembodied head and Gnaghi, fire-flies hanging upon visible strings and an apparition of the Angel of Death composed of pages from a burning phonebook! The film is a feast for those, who like myself, are enamoured of down-right insanity of plot, yet in terms of linearity the film for the most part avoids the often over-convoluted nature of scripts such as those of Argento's Profondo Rosso (1975). It in fact strives for a more 'lovably-evil' vibe than the down-right psychotically malign, while still not falling in line with the purely parodic mood of Sam Raimi's Evil Dead series (1981, 1987, 1992). Dellamorte Dellamore in general spins a unique mood of its own, which combined with the seductively misfit-like performance of Everett in this lesser-known role, possesses a charm which is hard to resist from the initial visually gorgeous Argento-style shot right up to the strange and original ending. My only warning applies to the dub: although the movie is officially dubbed in both English and Italian without specifying an original language, I still highly recommend the Italian dub since the only character which doesn't possess a shrill cringe-worthy voice on the English version is Francesco. Moreover, the script is in most instances more effective in Italian in terms of both depth and irony.
In comparison, Santa Sangre is probably even less accessible to anyone who doesn't already share an appreciation of movies that are well, basically, just plain weird! Alejandro Jodorowsky's film, which is probably a red herring in any imaginable context, requires the imagination to work a little harder since despite its intriguing nature, the production clearly plays out in a sequence of highly ambitious ideas which are way beyond its budget. In spite of this, or perhaps precisely for this reason, Santa Sangre holds a fascinating edge which you don't come across everyday.
Following the psychological deterioration of the young Fenix (Axel Jodorowsky) after he undergoes a series of childhood traumas within the grounds of his father's circus and his mother's fanatical religious cult, the film unfolds in a line up of seemingly random scenes featuring eccentric characters, tormented personal visions containing brutal religious imagery and a unique twist on the cinematically over-used Oedipus complex. In this way the film deals heavily with a Romanticised vision of the isolated madman figure, and the hardships of social rejection continue to be raised through several minor characters such as the melancholy circus clowns, who unlike Fenix, carry their outcast nature externally. In the meantime, selfish characters in the film often seem to fetishize each other's social or physical differences for their own ends. The film seems pretty obsessed with its inventory of the unusual and among the members of this list feature a muscular, completely tattooed woman with a relentless bent for power through her self-imposed shocking appearance and an ever-suffering mute ballerina with pierrette-style make-up.
With its highly baroque style and imagery as well as its erratic tone--which switches between camp, serious drama and melodrama--the only thing which I have been able to compare its style to is not a film, but a novel. In terms of visuals and instances of mood, the movie does in fact bear a striking resemblance to Angela Carter's eccentric novel Nights at the Circus (1984), although the film often seems to act as a tribute to more than one popular source of influence. A clear example is a delightfully tongue-in-cheek scene where Fenix enacts the concoction of an invisibility potion in what is obviously a tribute to James Whale's classic film adaptation, The Invisible Man (1933). However, throughout the film we sense the poignancy of even the most seemingly random scenes, and as Fenix's quest for invisibility continues to demonstrate his descent into the status of non-entity at the mercy of the figure of his over-bearing mother, this sequence becomes increasingly significant.
Any viewer's reception of Santa Sangre is bound to be mixed since apart from the mesmerising insanity which looms over the film as a whole, one other question remains surrounding it: is this movie camp or is it perfectly aware of the limitations of its budget and its sometimes painfully bad performances? Surely, the decision to have Spanish actors simply learn their lines by rote to appeal to an English-speaking audience has something to do with the often cringingly bad delivery of dialogue, though in the brief scenes where a transvestite wrestler mimes lines to what is obviously a mousy woman's voice recorded on a different track, then there is clearly something more going on behind the scenes. My guess is that Santa Sangre is quite self-consciously displaying its penchant towards happily non-mainstream film-making without being predictably or traditionally controversial.
And in any case, it is probably impossible for such movies to cause any level of controversy since they are so seldom given any attention or understood according to their own particular context, for it is clear that there are some movements or film-scenes which work on a very different wavelength in terms of mood, humour and over-all philosophy of style. This last comment of mine is however not meant in complaint to what may be understood as a general under-appreciation or dismissal of certain cult-appeal films, but rather a relieved reflection on the factors which allow this kind of underdog film-making to continue wheeling around its disturbing little treats even amidst the cynical laughter of the cool kids.
Two young sisters, Satsuki and Mei, move with their father to a new home in the countryside, at the edge of a great forest. Their mother is ill and is being treated at a nearby hospital. As the family settle into their new home, the girls explore the fields and the ancient forests that surround their new home. They meet strange, benevolent creatures that could be forest spirits or figments of their imagination.
That, in a nutshell, is the entire plot of My Neighbour Totoro, a masterpiece from a filmmaker who, with only one or two exceptions, has made nothing but masterpieces. I have no hesitation in placing Hayao Miyazaki among the very highest pantheon of artists working in the cinematic medium, and, though Totoro is not my favourite of his films, it brilliantly demonstrates the unique magic that animates his images.
I cannot think of any film that captures the feeling of being a child quite as accurately as Totoro does. Not any real, recognizable childhood, but the feeling of it - the endless wonder at the smallest thing, the joy in exploring one's surroundings, the moments of very real fear or sadness, the all-absorbing laughter, the escape into wonderful imaginings. This is an apotheosized, idealised childhood - Roger Ebert remarks that it is "a children's film made for the world we should live in, rather than the one we occupy".
And it is true that the world in which Totoro takes place is an astonishingly benign one, even by children's movie standards - there are no villains of any sort, no conflict between children and adults, hardly any dangerous situations. Their mother's illness is the only cloud hanging over the girls' rural idyll.And yet, in many other ways, Totoro feels entirely, resoundingly real. It's in the little details: there is never any moment when the behaviour of the girls is anything less than entirely convincing, in every expression, movement, action, reaction or word. Paradoxically, it is difficult to imagine a child (especially a child the age of Mei, the younger sister) ever being this convincingly real in a live-action film, played by an actor.
The other dominant element in the film, and in all of Miyazaki, is the surrounding natural landscape. At the core of just about every Miyazaki film, even the action-packed epics Nausicaa of the Valley of the Wind (1984) and Princess Mononoke (1997), is a calm, meditative, hypnotic stillness. Nature is treated reverently in his films, and it appears as something ancient, sacred and beautiful; perhaps one of the greatest praises that can be given to his work is that it sidesteps glib New Age-isms and succeeds in presenting an image of nature that is humbling, gorgeous, spiritual and profound.
Seen through the eyes of the young girls, the natural world around their new house is more than just beautiful - it is enchanting, something they can lose themselves in, feel a part of. As for the creatures themselves, from the gigantic but entirely adorable Totoro (possibly one of the most amusingly, irresistibly cute critters to ever inhabit a screen) to the astonishingly surreal Cat Bus - it is never made clear whether or not they exist outside the girls' imagination, or even if the adults they relate their stories to believe them to be. Either way, they make the world around the protagonists all the more weird and wonderful, all the more mysterious, fascinating and endearing, and create some of the film's most memorable moments.
My Neighbour Totoro, then, is a strange film, one without any form of danger, conflict, or traditional narrative drive, but that nonetheless manages to be completely entrancing and captivating. It is a gentle, unassuming and tranquil film that manages to make the world seem as limitless and full of possibilities, and the day as long and eventful, as it was when you were a child; that perfectly captures the childhood delight of exploration, and the feelings of wonder and awe (tinged with pangs of sadness) that colour childhood days. I cannot offer any praise higher than that.
It might seem strange that what strikes me as one of the cinema's most honest and perversely beautiful affirmations of love comes from David Lynch, a director more associated with disturbing dreamscapes and nightmarish journeys into the dark underbelly of small-town life. And yet Wild at Heart is precisely that: an oddball, offbeat, deeply troubled but ultimately joyful celebration of passionate love, and of the fragile yet powerful private sphere lovers inhabit.
Much of the film's success can be attributed to Nicolas Cage and Laura Dern, both delivering memorable performances at the manic intensity the film demands. The story of their characters, Sailor and Lula, is reminiscent of countless other outlaw-couple stories, from Badlands (Terrence Malick, 1973) and Bonnie and Clyde (Arthur Penn, 1967) all the way back, of course, to Romeo & Juliet, and probably to much earlier than even that. When I watched the film with Lara a few days ago, we talked about the parallels between the film and Shakespeare's play - though there are no warring families in Wild at Heart, there is the same sense of a rotten, corrupt and violent adult world that constantly intrudes upon and threatens to shatter the lovers' idyllic dream. The only way the couple can keep their dream alive is by running, constantly travelling down seemingly endless highways with California as an almost mythical, unreachable final destination. The adult world repeatedly ensnares Sailor into committing acts of violence, in much the same way as it does Romeo, and the forces and structures of the law, family and society form barriers which seem to trap Sailor and Lula and prevent them from achieving the happiness they find in each other.
One of Wild at Heart's strengths is that it belongs to the category of films (that also includes, for instance, Peter Jackson's Heavenly Creatures (1994)) that externalize the private, shared universe created and inhabited by its lover protagonists - the deeply personal dream-world in which they attempt to claim a space untouched by the corrupting, hypocritical influence of the adult establishment. Thus, the film's world is an endearingly, surreally kitsch pop-culture world of Elvis songs, jazz, snakeskin jackets, Good and Wicked Witches, convertibles and endless highways - a world composed of Sailor and Lula's psyches writ large. Theirs is a passionate, burning love expressed through numerous dancing scenes, rock songs, and especially through the energetically lustful yet tender hotel room sex scenes, expressing a bond that is unashamedly, delightedly carnal yet emotionally strong. This is in contrast to the adult world, which is depicted not as chaste and repressed (as is typical in many young vs. old narratives), but as sexual in a perverse and emotionless manner - as in the images of a mob boss constantly surrounded by naked, immobile sex slaves.
Lynch, however, does not shy away from depicting the dark side of the protagonists' story. The deliriously overblown fire imagery, repeatedly associated with the protagonists' lovemaking, recalls the death of Lula's father in a suspicious fire as well as the deaths of Sailor's parents through smoking-related illnesses, and invokes not only the ever-present spectre of death but also the realization that the fragile existence Sailor and Lula have carved out for themselves is ephemeral and cannot last.
This impression is reinforced by the haunting scene of carnage they encounter in the wreckage of a car accident that has claimed the lives of what seem to be kindred youthful spirits. As the girl they try to help dies in front of their eyes, a sense of mortality settles on the couple, shattering their previous confident hedonism. It is in this mood that they end up, penniless, in the dead-end desert town of Big Tuna, Texas, where the aura of decay and death is intensified as the first clue we get to the arrival of new life is a close-up of flies buzzing around a pool of vomit - perhaps the most stereotypically "Lynchian" image in a film which, for the most part, foregrounds his latent wacky sense of humour. Here, reality catches up with Sailor and Lula; they are forced to face the consequences of their hedonistic elopement and to realize that what they have been living is a dream that must reach an end.
At the end of the film, however, we have a hopeful - even joyously hopeful - note. Sailor and Lula have come to accept that life and love cannot be perfect, that they might have lost something along the way and that the pressures of the world might have damaged their impossible dream; but they have decided that is no reason to give up the dream. The finale is at once hilariously kitsch and, in a weird way, movingly romantic, and it affirms the possibility of the the existence and survival of love, even at the cost of a Sisyphean struggle with the outside world.
Wild at Heart is in no way whatsoever a subtle film, but it operates at precisely the right pitch to capture the love story of its characters - in much the same way that, at the opposite end of the spectrum, Wong Kar-Wai's In the Mood for Love (2001) exists at the subdued, quiet level the character of its protagonists demands. It is ultimately, for all its filmmaking and technical brilliance and postmodern invention, a simple, uplifting, life-affirming love story, and one of the best films by one of the greatest of film-makers.
About halfway through Andrei Tarkovsky's Stalker (1979), a film that had an impact on me that very few others did, the three characters who have ventured into the mysterious, otherworldly Zone - an eerily beautiful landscape of stillness, decay and disintegration - stop for a rest while crossing a riverbed. They are the aesthetically-minded but somewhat egocentric Writer, the rationalist Professor, and the eponymous Stalker guiding them through the Zone towards the Room, a place that supposedly grants all who enter it their deepest desire. Out of this simple, sci-fi-tinged premise, Tarkovsky crafts a shattering, profoundly allegorical, ambiguous meditation on faith and the spiritual element in humanity. As the travellers rest, Tarkovsky's camera, starting from the Stalker's sleeping face, slowly tracks across the shallow riverbed, finding, strewn in the dirt under the shallow, still water, the detritus of a dying civilization - cogs of industrial machinery, coins, hypodermic syringes, a religious icon. The camera finally stops when it finds the hand of another sleeper lying in the pool. It sounds so simple in words, but, much the same as the rest of this uniquely powerful film, the transcendental, poetic grandeur of the scene is impossible to bring across. Quite apart from its sheer aesthetic beauty (shot in gorgeous sepia tones), and its melancholy, meditative stillness, the scene is laden with symbolic weight. Coming immediately after a deeply philosophical argument on the possibility and means of transcending our human natures, Tarkovsky shows us all the implements and artefacts by which humanity has strived to make itself into something greater - all reduced to wreckage in the mud of a riverbed. Moreover, the shot traces an intellectual arc, starting and ending with humanity, suggesting that all of humanity's attempts at transcendence have only provided momentary flights that invariably return us to the inevitability of confronting our own human nature.It is a stunning, unforgettable moment in a two-and-a-half hour film composed of virtually nothing but.
