#1 here is the easiest choice I've had to make on any of these lists. For me City of God is the ... Furious on Film 04.26.07: I

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Submitted by admin on Thu, 2007-04-26 11:00.

#1 here is the easiest choice I've had to make on any of these lists. For me City of God is the best film made in the past decade by some distance. I'm glad its popularity has gone beyond niche and many people have seen it on DVD. Irreversible is another film that's not quite so well known. The controversial film, featuring a man being beaten to death by a fire extinguisher and Monica Bellucci getting raped in one of the longest and most unpleasant sex scenes I've ever seen, is like nothing I've experienced. There's no way to compare it to the other films on the list. It's almost vomit inducing. The style of filming is almost engineered to make you feel sick. I originally put Spiderman much higher but because Spiderman 2 is THAT much better it sort of bumped it down the list. After all how many other Adaptation's have there been? Or Gangs of New York?

Sidenote - This week each film was recommended to me by the author of Big Screen Bulletin; Chad Webb. Therefore replacing my "EXPECTATIONS" this week will be comments from Chad himself on why he recommended the film in question. They arrived after I'd written the vast majority of my comments so sometimes we say similar things. But I figure that's just great minds working alike.

CHAD WEBB RECOMMENDS � I have seen many films dealing with couples who are separated by race, but this, in my opinion, is the most compelling of the lot. At first, I was a little uneasy about watching a story of two people that have both age and race going against them, but as it unfolded; I was drawn in to their lives, and connected to the characters with ease. Rainer Werner Fassbinder made this in about 2 weeks, between other projects, yet to view it, the end result is so carefully directed, one would never guess that it was completed in such a short time. I would agree with someone who stated the plot felt a bit unpolished, but the direction of Mr. Fassbinder is most certainly not. His camera movements are so precise and calculated that the scenes are just beautiful to behold. This is one of his finest achievements. After I watched this once, it did not strike me as a masterpiece, but it remained in my thoughts, and all questions I had regarding the realism of various plot developments eventually made perfect sense.

TRAILER � Not so much a trailer as an entire three minute scene that someone has posted on You Tube. Should give you an idea of what you're dealing with.

PLOT � Emmi (Brigitte Mira) is an aging widower who works as a cleaner. Her life is losing meaning and she finds herself lonely all the time until a storm drives her into a local bar populated by Moroccan immigrants. One of them, Ali (El Hedi ben Salem), is dared to dance with the middle aged woman and ends up spending the night in her flat. They get married to avoid the sudden rumour mill and then find opposition at every turn.

WHATS IN A NAME � Fear Eats the Soul is an Arab saying. It's a way of saying that people should not be scared of anything because it destroys people.

OPINION � The director of Fear Eats the Soul is Rainer Werner Fassbinder. This was the film that garnered him international success for the first time outside of his native Germany. Fassbinder was a controversial figure. Despite his homosexuality he was married twice. Once to his editor and once to an actress. He also had a nasty habit of cruising the bars for sex and drugs even if he was making a movie. Although when it came to the actual film making he was a professional despite treating his cast like crap. He was never one to shy away from the controversial. In Fear Eats the Soul he goes directly after his own core audience; the German people. It seems that every German in Fear Eats the Soul has an agenda. They come off as a racist people who hate foreigners coming into their country to work. Their attitude towards the black and Arabic Ali is at times sickening. Like the shopkeeper who refuses to serve him because his German isn't perfect. Of course he has money to think of and eventually recants in order to get paid. Funny what will drive certain people to go back on their beliefs? It makes you wonder if their beliefs were all that strong in the first place or whether they were just following the crowd. That's the thing about racism. It's easy to mock that which is different. To hate those things you don't understand. Like the ladies Emmi works with declaring that all Arabs don't wash. The widespread generalisations utilised by Fassbinder in Fear Eats the Soul don't paint a good picture of post war Germany. It seems as if everyone has an agenda and that agenda doesn't include time for foreigners. Even Emmi's three children turn on her because of her relationship with Ali. I felt disturbed by this turn of events. I like to think that in our modern society that skin colour wouldn't change people's opinions of their own family. Maybe in some cases but certainly not anywhere civilised. The suggestion made in Fear Eats the Soul is that Germany, for all its post war progress, was not yet civilised. It was divided by race and religion. In particular there's an assertion by Ali, another generalisation, that German people are no good. So he hangs out with his Arab friends. Hence the bar and the chance meeting with Emmi. I think the big question about their relationship are whether it's really driven by love, as you'd hope, or by Ali's desire to become a German citizen. Or even whether it's driven by Ali being sick of being poor. Fassbinder does make a point of not telling the audience what to think about their relationship but rather what not to think. It's a film with deep rooted desire to weed out racism in society and as far as message films go it's very strong in that respect.

CHAD WEBB RECOMMENDS � Many critics placed Jean Pierre Melville's newly discovered film on their top 10 lists for 2006. I did not because it just did not feel right. I guess I felt we should pretend it has been around since it was made in 1969. This was released in a small number of theaters in the U.S., and is currently ready to be released on Criterion DVD in mid May. The story is about the French Resistance during World War II. I hate to divulge many more details since the film is still relatively new to most people. I have not seen a great deal of Melville's work, but I have seen Le Samourai, and like that, this is another brilliant piece of work from a fabulous director. This is an adaptation of Joseph Kessel's and Leville's memoirs from 1943. Thanks to cinematographer Pierre Lhomme, Army of Shadows has been restored for more audiences. It is engrossing, profound, and haunting. Don't waste any time searching for it when it is released on DVD everywhere.

PLOT � During the German occupation of France the French had an underground resistance movement. One of the important men in this movement was Philippe Gerbier (Lino Ventura). Army in the Shadows follows his attempts at fighting the occupation along with his group of rebels.

WHATS IN A NAME � Army in the Shadows naturally refers to the resistance movement. They were there and the Germans were worried about them and yet they were hardly ever seen.

OPINION � The opening 30 minutes or so of Army in the Shadows is spent introducing Gerbier. That's pretty much everything that happens. When a film has such an exhaustive and complete opening passage you know the director has a lot of patience and you know that things of importance will be allowed time to develop in Army in the Shadows. Director Jean-Pierre Melville was at the head of the New Wave of directors coming out of France in the 60's and was an inspiration to Jean-Luc Godard among others. In Army in the Shadows he knows there are scenes of great tension and just keeps the audience waiting for them. The scene where Gerbier has to complete a parachute jump, or his capture in the café, or the submarine reveal of the identity of Luc Jardie (Gerbier's superior in the resistance) or the murder of the informant who sent Gerbier to the prison camp in the opening 30 minutes. Or even the escape from the camp where the tension is allowed to build and build over a series of minutes where Gerbier organises a fellow captive into planning his escape. Then they sit there and wait for the right moment. As each passing second goes by with nothing happening the tension becomes unreal until the point where Gerbier finally moves. Seconds later he's running down the cobbled street as fast as he can. He ducks into a barbershop and gets a shave hoping to blend into the normal world. And that's the point where the introduction is over and we move into the actual film. All the business of introducing characters in the camp was merely so Gerbier wasn't entirely alone. The remark that came back to me when I realised who he was out in the real world was the remark to the Communist friend he has where he calls him "Comrade". The Communist mistakes it for Communism. "I'm not a Communist but I do have comrades" replies Gerbier. It's only when he's away from the prison that these remarks really come into context as we realise his comrades are those in the resistance. No one in the prison is referenced in the remainder of the film. Each member of the resistance gets their own little introduction piece though like Jean-Francois (Jean-Pierre Cassel) who goes to visit his brother after skilfully smuggling radio parts across the country. Or La Masque (Claude Mann) who is initially horrified at the practices of the resistance but then comes to realise the harsh realities of the world mean having to be almost as cruel as the Nazi's who occupy the land. After all, this is life and death. Melville knows this and spends an eternity building from one scene to another to ensure that the maximum possible tension is created. Tension is perhaps the greatest cinematic tool available to a director. All the greats have understood tension, especially Alfred Hitchcock, and tension can be the difference between a well made film and a masterpiece. To add to the tension is a lack of dialogue together with, at times, total silence. It's at times like these you can feel yourself breathing. When I was talking about K-19 having a lack of tension last week, this is exactly the opposite. In fact because Melville drags out scenes as long as he possibly can there are times where Gerbier narrates a scene devoid of dialogue just so there's something there. This happens a lot in the prison camp and near the end. The idea being that normally Gerbier doesn't have time for thought but during his periods of imprisonment he does. Army in the Shadows does a superb job of conveying the passage of time. It's made me want to see other Melville films like Le Samourai, Bob le Flambeur and Le Circle Rouge. When I was trying to get an idea of what directors I was missing out on the common theme seemed to be that they were European and in particular French. For some reason I've never been into French cinema. I think its part of growing up in England. We're taught through bigotry to hate the French from an early age. If you think that's untrue then think about the phrase "cheese eating surrender monkeys" and the V sign and where they originated. If the standard is going to be at this level then I'm glad I've overcome my jingoist and bigoted view of the world.

BEST BIT � Gerbier takes refuge in a swinging club while the bombs drop on London during the blitz. Everyone else is used to it and totally unaffected. Gerbier meanwhile is so rattled he can barely stand it. After a few minutes of watching the young Londoners dance the night away in spite of the bombs falling he heads back out onto the streets filled with an air of confidence.

RATING - ****3/4. Pushing for the maximum. Detailed and visually engaging. From the opening shot of German soldiers marching past the Arc de Triomphe it's a work of art.

CHAD WEBB RECOMMENDS - Growing up, westerns were a very common sight on the television set in my house because my father adored them. The book Shane, and the film adaptation have been apart of my life for awhile. I was lazy and never read the book as I was required to do in middle school, but the movie, I love. This film falls in the middle of Director George Stevens' "American Trilogy." The other classic instalments are Giant and A Place in the Sun. This is not my favorite western of all-time, but is definitely one that would be on my list of top 10 in the genre. On the surface this plays like a conventional tale of a worn out gunfighter attempting to settle down with a family, but look deeper, and the complexity of this tale will become clear. This is why the film has lasted so many years. What transpires is not overly surprising, but the acting, the filmmaking, the set design, and so forth are so superb that it is impossible not have respect for its power. Because Shane had the little boy Joey involved, it produced one of the most unforgettable sequences in history as he calls out Shane's name. This is simply a magnificent accomplishment with Jack Palance, Alan Ladd, Jean Arthur all turning it top-notch performances. I have always been a big George Stevens fan, and this is one reason why.

PLOT � Sodbuster Joe Starett (Van Heflin) is being threatened off his land by local landowner and old time Wild West cowboy Rufus Ryker (Emile Meyer). However when he hires drifter and gunslinger Shane (Alan Ladd) to work on his property he gets more than he bargained for. Shane helps Starett stand up to Ryker and provides a role model for Starett's son Joey (Brandon De Wilde). Ryker becomes frustrated with the situation and brings him famed gunslinger Jack Wilson (Jack Palance) to clear out the farmers.

OPINION � Growing up in the UK tends not to lend itself to a love of Westerns. As a genre it's one that's American in its values and storylines. In fact it's the most American of all genres. The Western was specifically created to showcase the sprawling land of the USA and the modern myths and legends the Wild West created. The heroes on horseback taken from both sides of the law have become the American version of old Gods and lore. Billy the Kid, Doc Holliday, Buffalo Bill, Butch Cassidy, Annie Oakley, Calamity Jane, Jesse James, Wyatt Earp, Pat Garrett, Wild Bill Hickok and even the fictional names that have been created like the Lone Ranger and Zorro. Hell, the Western is the basis for all sorts of films. Much of Kurosawa's best work in the field of samurai movies owed to John Ford's Westerns. And George Lucas' Star Wars saga paid tribute the Western mythology (and the samurai way for that matter). Over time I've gained a love of Westerns that's foreign to the UK. We don't have sprawling plains and uncharted country. But a film is great in any language. And when a great Western is truly great then it transcends its Americanism and becomes relevant to everyone. Shane is one of those great Westerns. The issues of ownership and bullying present in Shane could apply to any place in the world. There are human rights at stake and that's something that's universal. It helps that Shane has a superb cast. Alan Ladd is intensely likeable as Shane from the opening minutes where he rides his horse onto Joe Starett's land. He has a pleasant demeanour and doesn't seem menacing. If anything he seems too nice to be the anti-hero. But as time passes its clear there's an undercurrent with the Shane character. There more to him than smiles and winks. Shane is a terrific shot and a good fighter. He doesn't look it but when his life is under threat his personality changes. Ladd isn't alone as he's surrounded by great talents. Jean Arthur is particularly good as Mrs Starett and Palance's sneering gunslinger defines him. His character Curly in City Slickers is essentially the same guy only more weathered. The rest of the cast aren't great but there's a fine turn by Elisha Cook Jr as hard drinking farmer Stonewall Torrey. His interacting with the bad guys and in particular the evil Wilson is tremendous. The film is so rich in colour and character that the characters just flow from the screen. Ladd and Palance seemed destined to collide and the build up towards and eventual shoot out is great fun to watch. Shane isn't the conventional Western though. There aren't bullets flying at every turn. In fact much of the pacing is quite slow. It's more about building the characters up so what when the action does kick in it really means something. Van Heflin bothered me slightly because his turn isn't as good as Ladd's and the kid was pretty irritating but Ladd is gosh darn likeable as Shane as it's easy to forget the rest. Ladd's soft spoken Shane lights up the screen. It's not often that male film stars do that. Ladd looks every bit the star as the film progresses. It's a pity that thanks to the Hollywood picture structure being what it was in the 50's that Shane didn't catapult into a string of critically acclaimed and successful films. Shane was a high point for Ladd who died in 1964 of an alcohol and sedatives overdose.

RATING - *****. I was debating not going the full monty on this but I've already come close to it with Army of Shadows so what the hell. Shane is one of those quintessential Westerns. It shows an honour code for the Wild West and a way of honourably getting the job done. The scene where Shane is riding away is iconic and will be a lasting image in my mind for many years to come.

CHAD WEBB RECOMMENDS - "Aguirre: The Wrath of God" � This masterwork takes the audience on a journey that is a visual feast for the eyes. This is quite honestly one of the most memorable and lingering films I have ever seen. The mysteries surrounding how Werner Herzog shot this have never been made completely clear. I cannot even imagine how he managed to pull this off. While most of the dialogue and overall camera shots are spontaneous, and not planned, that does not take away from the power of what we are seeing. This follows a group of Spanish explorers searching for El Dorado. The types of films I love are ones that do not feel the need to stuff the storyline with fancy dialogue, clichéd action, or predictable outcomes. Just examining the world the characters travel through is amazing. Aguirre takes its time, and exposes the river and the forest with all of its might and vastness. This is an absolutely mesmerizing performance by Klaus Kinski, who as the rebellious Aguirre rules with a fearless attitude, and a cruel hand. What finally cements this as a perfect classic is the music, which lies in the background, and is fundamental to the sensations we experience. Herzog is one of the most imaginative filmmakers I know, and this offering is a cinematic treasure.

PLOT � 1560 and the Spanish are heading down the Amazon River in search of El Dorado, the famed city of gold. When the expedition runs into trouble a smaller group is sent on ahead to find the city. It's lead by Don Pedro de Ursua (Ruy Guerra) but he's soon undermined by the aggressive and ambitious Aguirre (Klaus Kinski). Driven mad with power and the pursuit of El Dorado he takes over and drives further into the heart of South America.

WHATS IN A NAME � Aguirre becomes so obsessed about his command over his men he thinks his power is divine. He proclaims himself to be the "Wrath of God" in human form. Hence the title.

OPINION � Aguirre is a weird film to experience. Director Werner Herzog didn't storyboard anything. He just had a general idea of what would happen and everything else was improvised on the day. There was a screenplay, which Herzog claims he wrote in 3 days, but still most of the film is done on the fly. Really this shouldn't work. There's one scene where one of the two female characters is being carried along in a sedan chair and it nearly topples over. In comes the hand of director Werner Herzog to make sure it doesn't fall over. This is in the film. The line between the actual filming of the movie and the movie itself is blurry at times. Although there's never a feeling that the 4th wall has broken down, which is good. Rather the camera feels like a character as it moves around in the limited space Herzog provides. On the raft down the Amazon River space becomes a real issue as Aguirre's crew get picked off by arrows from the shoreline. For anyone who's ever read Heart of Darkness or even likes Apocalypse Now this is the point at which Aguirre is really very similar to both. There's a constant fear of danger but a desire to continue with the mission. Aguirre is absolutely convinced he'll find El Dorado comparing his mission with that of Cortes, who conquered Mexico, unaware that there is no El Dorado. The lines become somewhat blurry here as well and the shit that went down on the set of Aguirre was legendary. Kinski pitched one of his usual fits telling Herzog he was going to walk off the film unless conditions improved. Herzog pulled out a gun and told Kinski that unless he stayed to finish the film he'd kill him. In later interviews Herzog claims he had every intention of doing so. In fact he refers to the You Tube tantrum of Kinski's to be relatively mild. Kinski's behaviour was so bad he fired a rifle into an occupied tent during the filming causing an extra to lose their finger. Herzog calmly confiscated the gun. This is such insane stuff that if it went down today every one of them would end up in jail. Kinski was worth retaining though. His borderline insane performance dominates the screen. Aguirre's pacing back and forth complete with him spitting out dialogue makes it hard to look away. You don't want to miss Kinski's next movement because it could be one that you'll never forget. I went into Aguirre not really understanding the appeal of Kinski. I knew who he was and what he was famous for but I'd never really seen a performance of his that wasn't in a paycheque movie. Aguirre shows Kinski on fire. Metaphorically, obviously. By the end Aguirre is completely insane ranting, almost like Adolf Hitler, at no one in particular and making the "Wrath of God" claims. The river has beaten him but he doesn't know it yet. The film mirrors reality with the cast going insane on a dangerous venture with little return. Aguirre was filmed in Peru on a small budget with a crew of just eight. It would not have shocked the world if everyone had been killed. Luckily reality did not mirror art although Kinski did lose his mind a little.

BEST BIT � One of the crew on the boat is picked off by Indians on the shoreline. "Ah, a long arrow. That makes a change" he says before dropping dead. Around him are the bodies of several other crew picked off with more conventional arrows. Also another crew member being struck in the leg with an arrow and thinking it's his imagination. Cue Aguirre diving into shot and shouting that it's real and they're under attack.

RATING - *****. Beautiful and disturbing, Aguirre; the Wrath of God, is a great character study. Just how hard will a man fight against the odds to become a legend? That's a question answered by Herzog as his Aguirre fights against the odds until he goes completely insane. Superb.

NEXT � In something totally unplanned next week features an assortment of foreign films with one Western. Pickpocket (from Robert Bresson), Winchester 73 (starring Jimmy Stewart), La Regue Du Jeu (Jean Renoir's classic "Rules of the Game") and Orphee (Jean Cocteau's Orpheus). 75% French cinema? I am expanding my horizons.

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#1 here is the easiest choice I've had to make on any of these lists. For me City of God is the ... Furious on Film 04.26.07: I