“Back to classics, back to cinema” is a personal journey through the movies. For every older movie I am going to talk about, I will go to the cinema and watch a new one. Because if the classic movies and their directors teach you one thing, it is:
Go to the movies.
Cul-de-sac-Roman Polanski-1966
Cul-de-Sac is a French term for dead end. Watching the eponymous film by an early Polanski, who came closer and closer to what is considered the height of his career, one has never the feeling to be trapped. There is an inspiring freedom in the way Polanski deals with his characters, with genre-clichés and even with music. Although all the action takes place at one place (and old fortress in the middle of nowhere, where one can be isolated from the rest of the world because of the tide) you can never say what is going to happen next. But in contrast to other films by the french-based, polish director like Repulsion or Rosemary’s Baby or even 2010’s The Ghostwriter; it is not tension or the slowly developing horror scenarios that keep you attracted. It is sheer madness.
Two gangsters, one heavily wounded arrive at the fortress where an eccentric British and his French wife live and they take the place as their refuge until their boss Kattelbach is supposed to take them out. The characters are heavily exaggerated; there is no space for normal behavior. If Polanski’s intention was to make it a comedy, he did not succeed at all. Comedy rarely comes from exaggerated behavior but more from character’s taking themselves too serious. After the first twenty minutes the loud voices and the silly dialogue will get on your nerves. And if that was not enough they all get drunk. What else to do when you have criminals as your guests?
But seeing this movie as a meditation on madness, portraying a decadent lifestyle and unlikeable characters (they all are), Polanski succeeds heavily. The fun actors and crew must have had making this picture is clearly visible. It is absolutely entertaining from the beginning to the end. Moreover the direction is as creative as always. Every chosen angle is an attraction. As an example the camera serves as a substitute for mirrors. And in this meta-theoretical reflection lies the one and only dead end of this movie. Castles, the feeling of being trapped and the clash of different cultures are frequently used motives of the director. But he never had such fun deconstructing them himself.
Sherlock Holmes- A Game of Shadows-Guy Ritchie-2011
An English legend has been rebooted in 2009. The director who should guarantee the success was one of the most famous Great Britain has to offer in contemporary cinema. There are three distinguishing marks to his oeuvre: Style, violence and a very British kind of humour. His name: Guy Ritchie. Despite neither of the two Sherlock Holmes movies being what you would refer to as a classical piece of auteur cinema, Ritchie was able to retrieve all these aspects into the movies. In gaining Robert Downey Jr. for the role of the strange detective a new series was established. It does not take itself too serious and therefore differs from other similar films, sequels, prequels, reboots and spin-offs. Moreover it did well enough at the box-office to justify a sequel.
The second part “A Game of Shadows” delivers what is expected: Style, action and a very British kind of homour with a lot of Robert Downey Jr. doing this and doing that. The story serves as a cheap and very poor excuse for a videogame-dramaturgy. It is all about the next joke, the next action-sequence, and the next attraction. Of course there is an over-the-top villain who tries to, well, get rich and there are little stories about personal tragedy and faith involved. But some of them are not even fully developed which shows their lack of importance to the filmmakers. Like its predecessor the film is more concerned with the art of slow-motion. He celebrates the sequences where the supernatural sense of Holmes comes into play: Fast cutting, slow-motions and blur-effects. Ritchie gives a lesson in good-looking pictures. In addition Downey Jr. is as unpredictable funny as always (especially when he talks to Dr. Watson, played by Jude Law, not so much when he talks to Noomi Rapace who is a true miscast here despite her talent.) and Hans Zimmer plays the same chords he plays in every movie. It is entertaining, although it is a little bit too long.
It is a solid mainstream flick. But what has to be said about mainstream cinema when you do not even need a plot to make a solid picture? It is like in school. There were the pupils that did not memorize the poems. When they were asked to recite them in front of the class they were not able to. But they knew that and the made a big show, playing jokes on the teacher, playing jokes on the class and playing jokes on themselves. They did not take school too seriously. It was all about style, humour and sometimes violence. All the class loved them, but the teacher hated them and gave them the worst grade anyway. It is your decision if-in the case of Mr Ritchie and his followers- you want to be the teacher or the class.
