civex Blog

Under discussion:

Film Name  Production Year

Seven Dumpsters and a Corpse  (2007)

This is the best documentary I've seen.* Thomas Haemmerli is notified by the police of his mother's death. She had been dead in her kitchen for some time before her body was discovered, and she was, it turns out, an obsessive hoarder -- her apartment is filled to overflowing (she has storage lockers) with the accretia of her life. Thomas and his brother, Erik, take a month to clear out all the garbage.

The dysfunction of this family is world class, and I hope the month of sifting through their mother's life and making this documentary worked as a catharsis for the two brothers. And that is the reason this documentary is the best I've seen.* 

One of the ways of distinguishing art from craft is that the artist puts all of himself into each work of art, fully. Each painting, for example, is a painting _of_ the artist as well as _by_ the artist. And this film is not a home movie of two guys cleaning out an apartment. It is a moving piece of Haemmerli himself.

"Seven Dumpsters and a Corpse" was filmed by Ariane Kessissoglou and edited brilliantly by Daniel Cherbuin; original music was done by Alexander Faehndrich. All three of these people were also fully involved in the documentary.

"Seven Dumpsters and a Corpse" is titled darkly after what was in their mother's apartment: Seven dumpsters worth of trash and her decomposed corpse. That the trash come first in the title is a hint of what is to come over the next hour and a half. The corpse was an avid amateur filmmaker in her youth, and we get to see Super 8 home movies of the family's idyllic life in Zurich, the south of France, skiing in the Alps, the vacation home in Greece. But we also get filled in on the divorce, the anger, the sex lives, the adultery, the rage, the lawsuits, the hate, the spite. And we see through the film how their parents' lives (and the lives of their grandparents, it turns out) have affected the two sons even into their forties.

The editing of the two men throwing their mother's life into a dumpster and breaking down boxes and baskets and their mother's life is brilliant and moving. Film schools could teach a course on the editing done here, with the flat, affectless voiceover of Thomas reading from the papers of the divorce lawsuit as the petitioner and respondent recite a laundry list of wrongdoing and suffering, as we watch the two sons sledgehammer and stomp the remains of their mother's life into submission and have it all hauled off by huge trucks in the seven dumpsters, taken away and out of sight, disappearing into the giant maw of god knows what efficient Swiss means of disposal has been engineered for ridding ourselves of a life's worth of things.

Pay attention during the film. Much of what goes around comes around again. And the "Ende" is not in fact the end. Wait and watch through the credits. This is a great piece of art. There is much humor, and there is much feeling. Both are understated, so careful attention is well-rewarded.

*Okay, so is "Ryan." They tie for first place. There is no second place. Nor third. No other documentary is even in the running.

Under discussion:

Burn After Reading  (2008)

The Coen Brothers nail another comedy with a wonderful cast playing wonderful, screwball characters. This movie is a riot. The cast includes George Clooney, Frances McDormand, John Malkovich, Tilda Swinton, and Brad Pitt.

Malkovich is superb as Osbourne Cox, a fired CIA agent who writes his memoirs in defiance of the agency that dumped him. A copy of his memoirs ends up in the hands of the employees of a local gym - Linda Litzke (McDormand) and Chad Feldheimer (Pitt), who are incredibly dumb and driven. They try to blackmail Cox, and the story spirals into complete chaos.

George Clooney should stop acting for anyone other than the Coen brothers. I don't know what they have that brings out the lunatic in Clooney, but every time he's in a Coen movie, he does the best job he's ever done. He's a good actor the other times, but for the Coens, he's one of the best of today's actors. Malkovich is excellent all the time, and he's used by the Coens superbly - well, I said superb about him a paragraph ago, but it's still the right word. His physical comedy here is hilarious. He's a great actor, and he gets to let it all out as Cox.

Among the nice things about this movie is that there are no babes (well, maybe Pitt, but we'll think more about that later), no slow-motion martial arts fights, no big gun fights with full automatic weapons, just funny scene after funny scene, with a few shockers thrown in to keep us off-balance. Pay attention - you'll be well-rewarded. I don't think there was a wasted scene in the whole shebang.

Under discussion:

Cat People  (1942)

Cat People  (1982)

This is an archetype erotic film with the beautiful Nastassja Kinski as the sexually conflicted Irena Gallier, Malcolm McDowell as her brother, Paul Gallier, and John Heard as Oliver Yates, her would-be lover. This is not a remake of the 1942 version; it has the basic premise of a woman in conflict, but the sexuality is not sublimated and there are no shadows to hide the gory effects. In this movie, the panther is real, and the forbidden fruit was created specifically to be eaten raw.

The reversal of the taboo from the 1942 version is a reflection of the year 1982. In 1982, Irena makes love as a woman, then is transformed into a black leopard. To regain her human form, she must kill someone. There is backstory, of course. Paul fills her in on the story (she was adopted and has no idea; she's still a virgin). He has spent his post-pubescence having sex with prostitutes, then killing them to change back to Paul. Paul tells Irena that as fellow cat people, they can have sex with each other without the change taking place - Irena is repulsed, but Paul tells her their parents were brother and sister living as husband and wife. It's either sex with each other or sex and murder. What a difference in movie outlook in forty years.

Kinski burns up the screen with her sexuality, and Heard is no slouch, either. As cat people, Paul and Irena have superhuman strength, making impossible leaps to escape when hunted. Director Paul Schrader makes excellent use of their lithe muscularity and grace in the special effects. And he makes the best use of a window frame I've seen, separating two would-be lovers with a riveting view.

In 1982, psychology is out and sex is in. Unlike the 1942 original, here there is no sublimation. Irena's refusal to mate with Oliver is not based on Old World superstition and morality. Instead we have the foreshadowing of lethal sex, a year after the discovery of GRID. 

SPOILERS SPOILERS SPOILERS SPOILERS SPOILERS SPOILERS SPOILERS SPOILERS SPOILERS 

Alan Ormsby (writer of this version of Cat People) has not obscured the real issue in the shadows as DeWitt Bodeen did in 1942. Sex (and bodies) are out in the open in 1982. In the 1942 version, Irena's problem was dismissed as superstition, but here the problem is an established fact: If Paul and Irena have sexual intercourse, they will turn into panthers until they kill; the exception is mating (as Paul puts it) with each other - in that event, all is well. Paul has accepted this situation and has turned to prostitutes for his gratification, killing them after the sex. Paul has the only line with any compassion in the entire movie: Don't make the mistake of having sex with someone you love - let me warn you away from _that_ disaster, he tells Irena.

Otherwise the film is devoid of any real human feelings. Oliver loses two friends to death by panther, and he's unfazed by both, curiously dead to their loss. Death is just a way to advance the plot, not a human tragedy to be mourned. Because of the lack of feelings, we feel no chill when Oliver assures Alice he knows what he's doing, although we the audience know he has no clue.

Ormsby is incapable of condensing his plot points into a reasonable time and more nearly clear meanings. Oliver and Irena drive a long way out of town, then row a long way to a secluded house occupied by Oliver's friend, for no apparent reason until near the end when we have the aha! moment and realize the friend was needed for the panther to kill. The opening of the movie is a silent sequence that makes no sense at all and takes way too long. Later, Paul and Irena visit that same set again in a dream sequence, and Paul explains what we were shown - without his voice over, we had no clue. Either the first dream sequence should have made sense or it should have been eliminated and only the second dream sequence shown.

Taken with the erotic themes and views, Kinski, McDowell, and Heard rise enough above the script to make the film worth watching. An interesting thing I noticed is how much alike McDowell and Kinski looked in the film - not like brother and sister, but _alike_. Paul discloses to Irena that their parents were brother and sister, so there's one reason, but the other is more chilling: Paul has sex and kills his partner, and Irena must do the same unless she chooses her brother as her mate. They are _alike_. 

There was a great deal of potential in "Cat People" quite apart from the original screenplay, but it is not fully realized. The human component is necessary and missing here. We're left with an erotic thrill but no catharsis over Irena's choice of freedom.