The Week in Cinema: 01/04 -- 07/04

-- a selection of short-form reviews of the films I have watched this week --

Ginger & Rosa (dir. Sally Potter, 2012)

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Written and directed by British auteur Sally Potter, Ginger & Rosa is a nuanced, coming-of-age tale of two young girls (subtly played by Fanning and Nivola) in 1960s England and their changing friendship whilst haloed by nuclear threat. Softly focused on the troubles of young age, the playground damage of adult relationships, and sex, every moment of its drama lights the screen in ways that are impossible to forget.

Dumbo (dir. Tim Burton, 2019)

✭✩✩✩✩
Again returning to the ever-broadening Disney empire, Burton’s latest remake is a sanitised, mundane retelling of the classic story of the elephant that could fly – and more. Certain moments shine, it must be noted – our discovery of baby Dumbo under the straw; or, whilst in flight to Danny Elfman’s choral score – but plastic, stilted acting, a weighted dependence on CGI and irregular pacing leave this nothing short of a misfire against its original.

Såsom i en Spengel (dir. Ingmar Bergman, 1961) 

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Loosely included within a spiritual trilogy of films, Bergman’s cold drama returns again to an island backdrop from which to conduct his investigation of deluded, psychotic lovers and familiars. The central premise of understanding God enthuses the dramatic exploits of three men and the woman who they each love, albeit in different, confused ways. Ideas typical of Dreyer and Tarkovsky chime throughout. Spellbinding, existential work.

Jamaica Inn (dir. Alfred Hitchcock, 1939)

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Glacially stumbling between horrendous set pieces, Hitchcock’s last British feature marks the first of three du Maurier adaptations he would produce over his career (later: Rebecca (1940) and The Birds (1963)) – this, unfortunately, is without doubt the worst. Cornish smugglers swoop back and forth across moorland, eventually landing their smug conspirator (played by Charles Laughton) in the timely hands of the law. Jamaica Inn's conclusion later foreshadows the ending of the far-superior Saboteur (1942), Laughton’s descent from the ship’s rigging repeated in Frank Fry’s fall from the Statue of Liberty – Hitchcock, in both features, choosing a singular, diegetic sound (the ripping thread of a coat sleeve, or wind in the ropes) as the only noise to be heard in its closing moments.

Detour (dir. Edgar G. Ulmer, 1945)

✭✭✭✭✩
Newly restored by Criterion, Ulmer’s no-budget ‘pre-noir’ noir, is (as phrased by the late Roger Ebert) ‘a movie [...] filled with imperfections’, such that it quickly soaks into the very fabric of the melodrama. Detour reminded considerably of Charlie Kauffman’s Synecdoche, New York with its restless, un-moulded material – a film that demands a certain type of viewing for it to be truly appreciated.

The Portrait of a Lady (dir. Jane Campion, 1996)

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Nicole Kidman holds her gaze throughout as wealthy heiress to another’s fortune, only to find her radiance eclipsed by the Machiavellian ‘quiet’ existence of Gilbert Osmund (demeaningly portrayed by John Malkovich). Campion’s film is as beautiful as it is unquestioning, the original novel merely a stepping-stone from which to continue her career-long concerns about femininity, tragedy and the observation of the female body.

At Eternity’s Gate (dir. Julian Schnabel, 2018)

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A gentle soul lies at the heart of Schnabel’s latest feature, one whose life amidst the momentous beauty of Nature (a ‘God-given’ state) holds contrast against the volcanic turmoil of his own existence and mental strength. Highly affecting in its portrait of the artist as unnoticed sufferer (a well-used genre, yet here freshly-coloured) the film inspires mood and feeling with every sunlight-flooded shot, despite its overdrawn, indulged and often digressive dialogue. 

Le Journal d’une Femme de Chambre (dir. Luis Buñuel, 1964)

✭✭✭✩✩
Filled with the typical plethora of misanthropic, bourgeois figures, Buñuel’s early 60’s masterpiece is as challenging as we might expect – the film, in essence, a bedrock to the personalities, study and conflict which later mark out his later, matured works. Exploding butterflies, a leather-shoe fetish and the death of an innocent mark this as an integral piece in the dazzling career of the Spanish exile. Note: aspects of his surrealist roots emerge in stormy clouds at the close, briefly. Darkly brilliant.