Outside the Frame...Top Films: 1990
looking at the same pictures from a different angle -
notes & impressions (with no particular preference).
notes & impressions (with no particular preference).
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- DirectorAbbas KiarostamiStarsHossain SabzianMohsen MakhmalbafAbolfazl AhankhahThe true story of Hossain Sabzian, a cinephile who impersonated the director Mohsen Makhmalbaf to convince a family they would star in his so-called new film.Phenomenal examination of identity - do you pretend to be someone else in order to play yourself? Up close & personal; obliterates divide between documentary and fiction. Mysteriously provoking, sits firmly beside Antonioni or Kieslowski. A masterwork.
- DirectorJames FoleyStarsJason PatricRachel WardBruce DernAfter he escapes from a mental hospital, a former boxer works for a widow. When she asks him to get involved in a kidnapping, he has second thoughts.Smoldering ambiguity. Dark & hot with a desperate hunger, yet nobly resigned - like a banished prince composing his own elegy. The best adaptation of Jim Thompson (includes the oily Bruce Dern).
- DirectorMartin ScorseseStarsRobert De NiroRay LiottaJoe PesciThe story of Henry Hill and his life in the mafia, covering his relationship with his wife Karen and his mob partners Jimmy Conway and Tommy DeVito.A comprehensive look into the inner mechanics of the working "stiffs" as opposed to the glamorous "Godfathers" - impeccably detailed; insightful, free flowing narrative matches the fluid camera movement...and yes, you are funny too.
- DirectorAki KaurismäkiStarsJean-Pierre LéaudMargi ClarkeKenneth ColleyHenri is depressed after losing his job, but finds himself too afraid to go through with suicide. He hires a contract killer to do the job for him instead - but what happens if he changes his mind?Pure Kaurismaki. Utilizes classic film noir standards almost as props, turning them into the most original idea involving a hit man - throw in Jean-Pierre Léaud and it's a must!
- DirectorChristian VincentStarsFabrice LuchiniJudith HenryMaurice GarrelThere is an author who has been dumped by his girlfriend and has no inspiration for a next novel. In an attempt to find a solution to both crises, he, along with his publisher friend, decides to seduce a young woman with the singular purpose of keeping a diary of the seduction and then dump her before publishing the book about it. Unfortunately he falls in love with her.Are objects of desire the art of deceit? Rohmeresque penmanship dipped in acid: a dish best served in print. Fabrice Luchini...should I say more?
- DirectorPatrice LeconteStarsJean RochefortAnna GalienaRoland BertinAntoine has always been fascinated by a hairdresser's delicate touch, the beguiling perfume and the enticing figure of a woman with an opulent bosom. After all, he always knew he would marry one, completing his idealised love fantasy.Offers a solution anticipating the question, "Where do love stories go once the passion's gone?" - perversely sexy, provocatively bittersweet.
- DirectorNikos NikolaidisStarsMeredyth HeroldPanos ThanassoulisMichele ValleyA man searching for his long-lost lover is kidnapped by her killers, an insane, mother-daughter duo, and they force him to commit various sexual atrocities with them.Bold & depraved...a monster's ball! Impulses so lewd it makes black humor blush. No more troubling than the standard-violent-gore ingredient in commercial products, just a different aesthetic; more akin to black art: where perversion's deepest compulsion taunts consequence.
Takes its cue from 40's Hollywood noir, framed in gorgeous black & white photography. Strangely hypnotic - combined with moody music and clever narrative ascends b-movie schlock. Rarely has debauchery drawn artistic circles around nobility as to be inviting. Those who look for film to traverse boundaries that broaden cinematic expectations (but actually demands it): this one's for the ages! - DirectorWhit StillmanStarsCarolyn FarinaEdward ClementsChris EigemanA group of young upper-class Manhattanites are blithely passing through the gala debutante season, when an unusual outsider joins them and stirs them up.Tasty dialogue (Chris Eigeman at table). Members only club where the only requirements are wit and inertia, challenging the world to grow up...without them.
- DirectorJean-Luc GodardStarsAlain DelonDomiziana GiordanoJacques DacqmineElena Torlato-Favrini, a headstrong Italian countess and business empire heiress, believes she surpasses any man, challenging societal norms and gender roles.Beautifully shot, a sonic symphony. Hyper-kinetic & literate heavy (even silence has say). Contentment or existence?...seem to run parallel lives as if answers were separate from questions; appearing to each other as foreign objects trying to reconcile the same language while they tally heavy losses.
Aptly titled; thirty years after Godard laid foundation, his art form endures a deconstruction of film: accumulating those loose fragments that link our past to re-examine its possibilities - as if it were new again. - DirectorBarbet SchroederStarsJeremy IronsGlenn CloseRon SilverWealthy Sunny von Bülow lies brain-dead, husband Claus guilty of attempted murder; but he says he's innocent and hires Alan Dershowitz for his appeal.Fascinating court caper. Individual motives camped under the same roof; a house of cards with an ironic tone that never tips its hand.
- DirectorDavid F. WheelerStarsAl PacinoPaul GuilfoyleJoseph MaherTwo symbiotic sociopaths play obscurely deviant mind games with each other while engaging in perversely brutal acts of violence against victims apparently chosen at random.Beautifully savage...a verbal tango. Envy & vanity swim in sexually current events that shape their appearance. Foreplay takes the role of grotesques staging their reflections in disguised exaggeration - smoke and circus mirrors; a tug of war where the two-headed monster tightens the noose, while its executioners provide them enough rope.
- DirectorIdrissa OuedraogoStarsRasmané OuédraogoIna CisséRoukietou BarrySet in a pre-colonial African past, Tilai is about an illicit love affair and its consequences. Saga returns to his village after an extended absence to discover that his father has taken Nogma, Saga's promised bride, for himself. Still in love with each other, the two begin an affair, although it would be considered incestuous. When the liaison is discovered, Saga's brother, Koudri, pretends to kill Saga for the honor of the family and village. Saga and Nogma flee to another village, but when Nogma's birth mother dies, he returns home. Having brought ruin on the family, Saga is shot by Koudri, who walks off into exile and probable death.An immovable feast. Sparse & stark; the sand & gravel art: Bressonian bareness stripped of convention, slows to gentle patter where directness yields incidental humor in monotonous rhythm that never strikes a false chord.
Individual laws of equality subject to universal morality it upholds - compassion unaccustomed to callous hands that etched in stone the mold of collective harmony. No different from "modern civilization's" progression towards liberty: the ease by which loyalty to personal conviction finds gentle acceptance in the face of hardened tradition. - DirectorStephen FrearsStarsAnjelica HustonJohn CusackAnnette BeningA small-time conman has torn loyalties between his estranged mother and new girlfriend, both of whom are high-stakes grifters with their own angles to play.A sort of hustler's handbook. Survival of the shiftiest: sugar daddies & bad-ass mamas cookin' up home made pies. Technicolor noir, stylish grit; but enough venom (from that most sordid of pulp writers, Jim Thompson) oozes through.
- DirectorJohn BoskovichStarsSandra BernhardJohn DoeSteve AntinSandra Bernhard stars in a studio version of her off-Broadway show, blending re-enactments of the original show's pieces with concept vignettes and 'testimonials' to underscore the relationship between a performer and an audience.An Avant-Garde cabaret. Beatnik Bernhard and her jazzy rips plays like one long monologue spliced into animated tableaux: the art of discomfort (proud self-portrait never shown publicly). Absurdly melodic, but with undertones of lament - a requiem for repressive times; historical footnotes who tapped their own beat, where modern cynicism claimed title that never dared self mockery.
- DirectorHal HartleyStarsAdrienne ShellyMartin DonovanRebecca NelsonAfter being thrown out of her house, Maria encounters a married woman who complains of not having children. Maria ends up in an abandoned house, where she meets Matthew. When a baby is kidnapped Maria sets out to find the woman.Fassbinder-like melodrama. Characters seem to edit their own dialogue as they discharge rather than speak, discarding all ceremony - dead pan alley coupled with it's rumbling, semi-automatic delivery challenges you on its own turf.
- DirectorBenoît JacquotStarsJudith GodrècheMarcel BozonnetThérèse LiotardBeth, a teenager in the midst of a painful moral education, is put in the unenviable position of holding her family together and debasing herself at the suggestion of both her scornful bedridden mother and her no-good boyfriend.Naturalistic piece, an interlude. Old world romance pays heavy debt to modern functionability of convenience & necessity (leaves little room for magic); love by default. In our quest for order anticipation is dulled, inadequate to surprise - money isn't shy and youth's a short term loan. Not that a new life offers better results, only no obligations where the choices are hers, defined not by rebellion but a state of grace.
- DirectorKarel ReiszStarsDebra WingerNick NolteWill PattonAngela (Debra Winger) hires/lures a P.I. (Nick Nolte) to prove a convicted teenager is innocent of his uncle's murder.Bizarre noir. Atmospheric dream-logic à la Lynch: you can't round out something with this many edges. Masked humor plays straight with crooked truths seen as angles (traditional element being ol' shamus gets stiffed...from his point of view).
Winger plays the tricky twist, adding another dementia to the femme fatale. You can't overthink an eclectic mystery (most significant clue being the title). A unique approach to an old setup that defies expectations - particularly if you have none. - DirectorYves RobertStarsPhilippe CaubèreNathalie RousselDidier PainAt the end of the nineteenth century, little Marcel lives with his parents in the Provence countryside. During his holiday, Marcel meets Lili, a local boy who knows all the secrets of the hills, and the two become fast friends.Little light in the lens; like 6th grade homework (Cheaper by the Dozen?). Pastoral watercolor has tendency to force "cute": comic book drawings & silent film sketches; but skillfully carves nostalgia's genuine tone out of boy's fascination with father's god-like figure, skirting sentimental trap with smarts.
Horse & buggy portrait - nice trot without the pomp and hurry amid frantic cuts associated with this material. Backseat drive with window down, sleeves flapping...a cool easy breeze. - DirectorGianni AmelioStarsGian Maria VolontèEnnio FantastichiniRenato CarpentieriA principled judge faces a case that society demands capital punishment for.Fair dose of hysterics (arrangement by mutual accord, more bass than treble); where judge serves as counterpoint: the slow burn of the thinking man. He locks his doors at night because he's a realist, while questions remain open as ideals.
Doesn't pander social issues that rant pedantic & hypocritical; rather a platform on which observation requires distance - sedative tone above reactionary din balances measures equally: recognition & opportunity as alternatives to judgment lighten the weight. - DirectorAlan RudolphStarsTom BerengerElizabeth PerkinsAnne ArcherVampish miss Dolan hires hardboiled P.I. Harry Dobbs to tail her shady boyfriend. Harry realizes that the man leads a double life but then his client disappears. Harry teams up with his own tail, P.I. Stella Wynkowski, to clear things up.Perfect for a gray afternoon and the day off. Left-footed gumshoe has horse by the wrong tail; though occasionally stumbles over miscues & sags around the middle, stays fit to course: never heightens into parody or slows for false sentiment (fast track to mediocre comedies). One-trick-pony who's no thoroughbred - a Rudolph shuffle of dicks & damsels that eases before it strains.
- DirectorÉric RohmerStarsAnne TeyssèdreHugues QuesterFlorence DarelSimple conversations engender complicated human interactions. Jeanne is open and even-tempered, a philosophy teacher at a lycée. Her fiancé is away and she doesn't want to stay at his messy flat; she's loaned hers to a cousin, so she accepts the invitation of Natasha, a music student whom she meets at a party, to sleep in her father Igor's bedroom because he's always with his young girlfriend, Eve. Natasha tells Jeanne a story of a missing necklace and her suspicions of Eve. They all meet at dinner, then again at Igor's country house. Is Natasha scheming to get Igor and Jeanne together alone? Once alone, what determines how they choose to act? And the necklace, what of it?Not as fulfilling as the usual Rohmer, but intriguing, nonetheless. Even with a lesser payoff, Rohmer is never about getting there, it's the walk up.
- DirectorPhilip KaufmanStarsFred WardUma ThurmanMaria de MedeirosAnaïs Nin meets American writer Henry Miller in Paris in 1931. She keeps a diary of her sexual awakening, which includes Henry and his wife June.Theatrically contrived, comes off as stagy; but when not fulfilling its dramatic obligations, the spontaneity is lax enough to make you yearn for 30's Paris Bohemia...and what we've lost: the openness of discovery's liberation through artistic necessity and sexual gamble, where there was enough space to fit time in.
- DirectorAki KaurismäkiStarsKati OutinenElina SaloEsko NikkariA woman's terribly dull life is upended by a one-night stand pregnancy, causing her to seek retribution.Could have used a little more flesh, but it's all Kaurismaki - although a little heavy handed, tenderly crafted with a minimilist refinement.
- DirectorJoel CoenEthan CoenStarsGabriel ByrneAlbert FinneyJohn TurturroTom Reagan, an advisor to a Prohibition-era crime boss, tries to keep the peace between warring mobs but gets caught in divided loyalties.Bordering on caricature, along with the occasional (and obligatory) Coen silliness; but with a hard bite to it - so if you like your poison with 30's gangsters spitting Chandler gab, then take a shot.
- DirectorFederico FelliniStarsRoberto BenigniPaolo VillaggioNadia OttavianiThe amusing and entertaining adventures of a recently released mental patient and his band of misfits, who discover conspiracies to participate in while looking for love.Convoluted as a whole, but taken as vignettes are masterfully done (Benigni & Fellini is a surrealist's dream unto itself). What comes through is his pure love of film which is unsurpassed - life as canvas for images it inspires. Made more poignant for being the maestro's last celebration of friends and lovers; old desires with younger memories.
Time is running out of space, as silence allows him to hear the voice of his imagination: a circus in the stars..."I love to remember, more than to live. And besides, what's the difference?"