Camera & Pen

Hiroshima Mon Amour (1959)

Director: Alain Resnais

Cinematographers: Michio Takahashi, Sacha Vierny

I really enjoy French New Wave films, so I was quite excited to watch this movie. I didn’t know anything about the plot, I decided to go into it blind. I couldn’t have been any happier.

This movie was absolutely amazing, every single part of it. The only way I can think to describe this film is that it is poetry set to beautiful cinematic scenery. The dialogue is just heartbreakingly beautiful and will leave you with a deep feeling of melancholy and loneliness. The chemistry between the two characters feels so real and their one night of love seems so truly believable.

The film centers on a french actress who travels to Hiroshima, Japan to film a movie, where she meets a Japanese architect. The two share one night of passion and get to know each other through telling their experiences that revolve around World War II and the dropping of the bomb on Hiroshima.

The beginning of the film is essentially a montage of horrific scenes that were caused by the dropping of the bomb. Throughout these scenes, Elle (Emmanuelle Riva), the main actress whose name is never revealed, narrates her feelings that she had while she explored the museums that show the damage that the bomb left behind. These scenes of carnage are intercut with scenes of the two characters making love in a dark hotel room. The rest of the film follows the two characters on their emotional journey through the beautiful city of Hiroshima.

This cinematography of this film is absolutely gorgeous. It’s films like this that honestly make me question whether I prefer Black & White Cinematography or Color Cinematography. The lighting is stunning, with harsh lights always appearing on Elle’s beautiful face while Lui, the actor whose name is never revealed, is usually cast in the shadows. The city itself is absolutely gorgeous, with neon signs in Japanese covering all of the buildings. My favorite scene of the entire film, the picture above, is the scene when Elle finally reveals her past to Lui. It is actually one of my new favorite scenes from any film.

The editing of this film helps to bring across the dark themes of the film as well, while contrasting them with beautiful imagery. Many of the transitions between scenes are dissolves, which make the cinematography just that much more beautiful. Music is used very sparingly, adding to the emotional tension in scenes. The dinner scene lacks music entirely, and is filled with emotionally charged words separated by long pauses of silence. Every word said has so much meaning behind it.

This film actually reminded me of several other modern films that could have easily been inspired by this. Lost in Translation and Before Sunrise/Before Sunset, some of my favorite movies, touched on some similar themes seen in this film and in similar ways. Hiroshima Mon Amour has clearly left behind a long lasting impression on films.

 
I would recommend this film to absolutely everyone, especially those that enjoyed the aforementioned films. This film is definitely going on my list of all time favorite movies, it was perfect in just about every way.

5/5 

Justin

Melancholia (2011)

Director: Lars Von Trier

Cinematographer: Manuel Alberto Claro

I’m going to start off this review by saying that I’m sure I’ll get plenty of nasty messages about this.

I’ve never seen a Von Trier film before, though I’d heard about some of them in the past. I figured I might as well start with his most recent one given that there has been quite a bit of buzz going on about it. Kirsten Dunst even won the Best Actress award at Cannes, despite the fact that Von Trier himself was kicked out, for making jokes about being a Nazi (I know, so funny right?).

The movie opens with a CGI montage of a planet colliding with Earth, letting the viewer know how this movie will end. Part one of the film follows. Part one takes place at the reception of Kirsten Dunst’s wedding. The reception takes place at her sister’s, Charlotte Gainsbourg, and her sister’s husband’s, Kiefer Sutherland, house. Dunst’s character Justine is an emotional rollercoaster. She swings back in forth between incessantly happy and morbidly depressed. Her emotions are the main focus of the movie. Part two starts about an hour later, and Justine has moved in with her sister. She has become too depressed to take care of herself, forcing her sister to take care of her. The second half of the movie is where we really begin to learn about the planet, Melancholia, that is supposed to narrowly evade the Earth as it flies by, though Von Trier showed us at the beginning that this is not the case. Part two focuses on how all of the characters deal with the knowledge of their own death.

This film is pretty different from a lot of Hollywood films, in the way that it handles the plot; there isn’t really one. The entire focus of this movie is the way that different types of people handle their emotions and deal with the thought of their own death. Pessimistic-depressed people, Justine, don’t have much anxiety over the idea, because they’re already expecting the worst out of life. Whereas people that ARE capable of controlling their emotions are distraught over their death.

Now that all that is out of the way, I can officially say that I hated this movie. I felt that the first half was really unnecessary, and they could have expressed the fact that Justine was emotionally unstable a lot faster than they did. The characters of the film, I found, were all pretty weak. There is no central character I could identify with, leaving me feeling alienated as a viewer. I also felt that the film moved at an incredibly slow speed for no real reason. There was no driving force behind many of the actions the characters performed. The first part of the film is a jumbled mess of jump cuts that doesn’t even begin to explain why Justine is doing the inane things that she does, and the second part of the film is Justine’s sister having a mental breakdown while Justine lays naked in the moonlight.

From a cinematographer’s viewpoint, I also hated this film. I don’t believe that a single shot is from a tripod or steadicam mounted camera. The entire film is incredibly shakey, though not in a Blair Witch mockumentary type-of-way, but in a really jarring and annoying type-of-way. No part of the camera work in this film really stood out to me as being aesthetically pleasing, in fact I complained aloud about how much it was bothering me the entire 136 minutes of the film.

The only semi-decent part of this film is the acting, and even that isn’t incredible. Though I didn’t see the other nominees, I find it a little difficult to believe that Dunst’s performance deserved a Best Actress win.

This film is an, unsuccessful, attempt at examining the human mind. While the concept sounds interesting, the execution is terrible. The only reason to see this film is because of Kirsten Dunst being topless, and you can just Google those pictures and save yourself 135 minutes.

1/5

Justin

American Graffiti (1973)

Director: George Lucas

Cinematographers: Jan D’Alquen, Ron Eveslage

I really love this movie. Everything about it is great. The characters are well personified. The plot, though simple, is very engaging and effective. The soundtrack is phenomenal. It’s perfect.

The film was written by George Lucas, Gloria Katz, and Willard Huyck and was produced by film icon, Francis Ford Coppola. That alone should get you to watch this movie. Directed by George Lucas of course, this movie was done on a $777,000 budget. Throughout the years it has earned an estimated $200 million. Not bad for a film that almost never saw the light of day. It is truly the story of an underdog that stuck it to the studio executives. 

The plot is about a night out in 1960s Modesto (Lucas’ Hometown) with a group of teenagers. The characters that we follow throughout the many car rides, hook ups, and other  of the night are Steve Bolander (Ron Howard), Curt Henderson (Richard Dreyfuss), John Milner (Paul Le Mat), Terry “The Toad” Fields (Charles Martin Smith) and Laurie Henderson (Cindy Willams). Curt’s side of the story is that he received a $2,000 scholarship to go to college in the Northeastern United States with his best friend Steve. However, like many people are at that point, he is undecided. Steve also got accepted to the same college and is just as undecided. Laurie, who is Steve’s girlfriend and Curt’s younger sister, is unsure what she thinks about Steve leaving until he suggests that they see other people to “strengthen” their relationship. This gets her very upset of course. Steve lets Toad borrow his 1958 Chevy Impala for the night while he, Curt, and Laurie go to the freshman sock hop to dance. On the way to the dance, Curt sees a girl in a white 1956 Ford Thunderbird who mouths to him that she loves him. He makes it his mission to find that girl and talk to her and goes out on a journey to find himself and decide what is it exactly he wants. Toad’s story is that he meets a girl named Debbie who is “more than a little friendly.” They buy some alcohol and Toad attempts to get lucky. Milner’s side of the story is that he gets stuck with an annoying girl who is younger than him, and a guy named Bob Falfa (Harrison Ford), is looking to challenge him in a race at a place called Paradise Road. The film ends with Curt leaving to college, Steve, Milner, Toad, and Laurie staying in Modesto and an on screen epilogue tells the viewer what happened to them all, with the exception of the female characters.

The soundtrack is brought to us in radio-station form by Wolfman Jack. I don’t think there was ever a quiet moment in this film. There is a classic song playing one after the other. It’s just great.

The only problem with this movie is the lighting, though that is to be expected in a movie that is almost entirely shot at night, and a bit of the audio. It’s hard to see character’s faces, and it’s a bit hard to hear the dialogue. I would definitely love to see a High Definition release of this movie soon with this fixed. That being said, if you liked Dazed and Confused, my opinion is that you’ll like this movie as well. It is definitely one of my favorites and it is worth 108 minutes of your time.

5/5

Roger

Trainspotting (1996)

Director: Danny Boyle

Cinematographer: Brian Tufano

Because of a recommendation, I decided to check out Trainspotting, and what did I think? Well, I certainly enjoyed the hell out of it but I expected something a little different.

The film was written by John Hodge and directed by Danny Boyle. After a bit of research I realized that he also directed such critically-acclaimed films as 127 Hours, 28 Days Later, and Slumdog Millionaire. Moving on, this film is about a group of heroin addicts and their lives living in the slums of Scotland. Our Protagonist is a character named Mark “Rent Boy” Renton played by Ewan McGregor; this could be considered his breakout role. Renton narrates the film and provides the viewer with insight on the life of a heroin addict. The problems he deals with include: his struggle to sober up, the financial aspect of drug use, falling in love, loss of friendship, and health problems.

I’ve never seen the life of a drug addict seem so real with characters that were actually relatable, that’s one of the reasons why I enjoyed this movie. I mean, you watch movies about drug addicts all the time, but with this film they actually portrayed the lifestyle in an enjoyable manner. However, I feel this is where I had a slight problem with the movie, with an emphasis on the word slight. While I certainly liked the direction that this film was taking in showing the recreational use of heroin, to me, it felt like it was just another “drug movie.” I thought of it as a serious version of those “comedy” movies involving weed . They talk about it, they use it, and shit happens (quite literally, in this movie). They’re two completely different styles of films I know, but I felt it reminded me too much of said films. Though I want to reiterate that I did enjoy this movie.

I love this film’s script and I really enjoyed the set, particularly the nightclub where Renton meets a fifteen year old schoolgirl named Diane. The script seemed so natural in showing people talking about everyday things and their interests. Like the abundant references to James Bond movies; I love that. You can relate to that because it almost seems like what you and your friends might do. Also, the set of the nightclub has a poster of one of my favorite films, Taxi Driver. There’s even a callback to the Milk Bar in A Clockwork Orange and I thought that was really cool.

I highly recommend you to check out this movie; it has great acting, great directing, great writing, and is just all around enjoyable. It really is no surprise that it earned a top ten spot in the British Film Insitute’s Top 100 list.

4.5/5

Roger

The Virgin Suicides (1999)

Director: Sofia Coppola

Cinematographer: Edward Lachman

I just re-watched this movie with my girlfriend since she’d never seen it before, and I have to say this movie somehow managed to get even better since the last time I’ve seen it. This was Sofia Coppola’s first film that she did, and goddamn did she do it right. If I hadn’t already seen Lost In Translation, I’d go as far as saying there is almost no way she could make a movie better than this. I truly, honestly, love everything about this movie. The cinematography is just fucking perfect. The color and desaturation of the whole film just makes my knees weak. There’s about an equal amount of really warm yellowish scenes, and really cold blue scenes and they form the perfect equation to really reflect the meaning behind this movie.

The story is quite interesting. The movie is narrated by one of the boys (Giovanni Ribisi), years after the events have taken place. Anyway, it’s about five sisters, The Lisbon Girls, with overly protective parents in 1974 Michigan. The Lisbon Girls keep to themselves mostly, which fascinates the teenage boys who live in their neighborhood. The boys take it upon themselves to get to know the Lisbons, which they do through brief interactions with them and the various possessions of the girls they can get their hands on. They begin to piece together the lives of the girls and feel a deep connection with them. Lux Lisbon (Kirsten Dunst) is the daring sister, who manages to get her and her sisters locked down in their house even tighter. The boys are entirely cut off from the girls at this point, and they take it upon themselves to save these girls from their prison.

It’s really difficult for me not to go in depth trying to analyze the messages behind this movie, but I don’t want to spoil it for you. You should watch this film immediately and form your own opinion of what the meaning of it is to you. I mean it; go now. It’s also currently on Netflix.

5/5

Justin