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Reviews
Intacto (2001)
"survivor guilt"
Somewhere I read a review of this film in which the crux is said to be the problematic idea of "survivor guilt." That idea was very much in my mind as I watched.
I am willing to agree with this interpretation. As in all other areas of life, what happened at the concentration and extermination camps haunts the cinema. When read through this idea, that The Jew has created this "game" in order to understand/think through/deal with his experience in the camp, the film becomes a stunning moral and ethical tale.
When this is added to a thoroughly exciting and beautiful film, the result is brilliant.
I can't recommend this enough.
Adaptation. (2002)
I don't have a problem with the ending, but...
I saw this film a couple of weeks ago and have since discussed with a number of people. The ending of the film wansn't a problem for anyone I talked to. For me, it has to do with a sense that the characters are/could be real people. Even though "honesty" is not quite the correct word, there is something about leaving a number of unanswered questions that brings the film closer to "real life." Of course, Orlean and Kaufman and all sorts of other people in the film ARE real people who have gone on living and were mostly in attendance at last night Golden Globes. Even La Roche is still living (said Orlean yesterday on NPR). I am reminded of something Jim Jarmusch says on the new Criterion DVD for "Down by Law." He says that the ending of that film, which frustrates many people, is intentional because it was important for him (Jarmusch) that the characters seem "real," that they keep on living AS CHARACTERS beyond the end of the film. It seems to me that "Adaptation" does the same thing, albeit differently.
The problem that I/some friends have with the film is the use of self-reflexivity, which the film obviously revels in. I don't think that I'd be alone in tracing a good deal of this type of self-reflexivity back to playwrite Bertolt Brecht. What Brecht insisted on, which is lacking in "Adaptation," is that this distancing effect, "distanciation," is used to remind people that they are watching a construction and that they should be thinking about it critically, hopefully as a prelude to social action. I think that "Adaptation" successfully distances viewers, as evidenced by the User Comments on this site, but I fail to see any coherent (or jumbled postmodern) set of social critiques that would propel people to act. There is a sort of emotional/psychological message about how we think about our place in the world and how we understand happiness/love/passion, but that seems too apolitical for me to congratulate the film on its deployment of Brechtian effects. Even "Being John Malkovich" felt more political to me.
All that said, I actually liked the film a great deal and have recommended it to many friends already, so I recommend it to anyone reading this. It's well worth the long running time, if only for something to think/argue about.
La passion de Jeanne d'Arc (1928)
there is no better film to begin a serious study of film
The Passion of Joan of Arc, especially with the addition of Einhorn's score, is the best film I can imagine using as an introduction to film study. As a student/occasional-teacher of film studies, I tend to watch for all sorts of technical details and usually end up intrigued by films far more often than "moved."
Viewing this film is considerably different for me. It's something of a truism now that this is one of the best-acted, most emotive films ever created, and I couldn't agree more, which is why using this film to begin thinking about the myriad issues in film studies seems ideal.
On the most basic level, there is a wealth of topics related to symbolism and semiotics (silent films "speak" entirely in visual signs). There is also, as many others have pointed out, a use of camera angle and shot framing that is emotionally and narratively powerful, but also seems stylized to contemporary viewers, thereby simultaneously drawing viewers in and allowing a critical distance for examination of the technique.
The addition of Einhorn's score makes this film a wonderful case study in theories of textuality, textual authority and discourse theory. The various theories of authorship (Foucault's "what is an author?" and Barthes' "Work/Text" seem particularly applicable) can be studied at length considering that Dryer is not around to consult about the addition. Einhorn's libretto also raises a number of questions about the relationship between Dryer's film, the other stories of Joan of Arc (explored on the Criterion DVD), Biblical text and the female mystics. Biblical exegesis, textual criticism, semiotics and psychoanalytic theory can all be brought together to elucidate some of the most urgent questions any text can ask: what is the nature of humanity? What is the human relation to (a)god? What are the political/religious/ethical ways gender is dealt with? (or performed?) What is jurisprudence?
Usually, I would try to separate each of these inquires into film, if for no other reason than I know of few texts are both intellectually AND emotionally complex enough to support such a thorough inquiry without boring students. I'm not sure that this film could ever become "boring."
I can recommend to film more highly than this one, especially to beginning students of film.