jlgdrd's film blog - Archive

A Thousand Clouds of Peace: Poetry of Loss

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Under discussion:

The Last Picture Show (1971)

Querelle (1982)

Rumble Fish (1983)

Touch of Evil (1958)

O Fantasma (2000)

A Thousand Clouds of Peace (2003)

A Thousand Clouds of Peace is an ode to loss and yearning, an extended fever-dream or hallucination that we share with Gerardo (Juan Carlos Ortuño) as he carries Bruno's letter in his pocket, haunted by the words he used to explain why he can no longer see him. Sometimes he appears to be looking for Bruno (Juan Carlos Torres), for others he meanders and malingers, making contact with friends, clients, and strangers. There is something intuitive and almost preverbal about the way he connects, as if he knows them intimately and not at all, as if they can read each other's minds. It's a familiarity of attraction and repulsion that reminds you of Bergman. Like when you mingle drunk at a party where social conventions have been dropped and there's a kind of jovial, empty intimacy.

It doesn't seem adequate or appropriate to describe Gerardo as a prostitute. He accepts money from the men he engages only grudgingly, as if looking for something else. His urgency is not the kind plied by hustlers who hang out in alleys, abandoned playing fields, and other deserted parts of the city. Most likely he's trying to rekindle the one-time tryst, an affair that was cut short. It may be that Gerardo wanders in search of a lost lover, and while this may be dangerously close to a cliché, A Thousand Clouds of Peace makes it infinitely plausible. In no way does Gerardo seem mercenary or depraved, his compulsive behavior driven by hunger of memory and longing for the lost bliss of intense, exquisite, mythic, sexual love.

We are forever noting the distance between Gerardo and other men, the guarded steps they take before touching, whether affectionate or commercial. We see how men can pass from obfuscation in one another's eyes to clarity. Gerardo approaches women protectively, affably, but without the desire that informs his conquests. A Thousand Clouds of Peace is set in Mexico where we grasp in almost ballet-like body language and movement how queer identity and electricity fit into machismo culture. We see how much information can be transmitted without dialogue. Gerardo acts but doesn't seem audacious or daring; he is who he is. His abuse at the hands of an ambivalent john is almost treated as an occupational hazard, until we witness the effect. His mother is horrified, "You look like a wandering ghost," she remarks, and sure enough, he does.

Along with cinematographer Diego Arizmendi, director Julian Hernandez has crafted a subtle, remarkable liquid visual poem of a film. Shot in black and white and rivaling the visual style of Orson Welle's Touch of Evil, Peter Bogdanovich's The Last Picture Show or Francis Ford Coppola's Rumble Fish, it is crisp and sharp, yet surreal. The lack of color softens the tawdry, squalid streets, the bedrooms, crumbling walls, stairwells, and dilapidated apartments where Gerardo struggles and agonizes through his recollection and loss of flawless ecstasy with Bruno. Arizmendi brings out the raw beauty, visual texture that might normally evade our radar - rocks and dust and steel and posters torn from the sides of buildings. The actors in A Thousand Clouds of Peace are not attractive in the conventional sense, but they are fetching. They might have jug ears or wide mouths or rubbery jowls. But their appeal, their unrefined tragic handsomeness gradually, ineffably soaks in.

Understated eroticism suffuses the film. Though beaten down by desolation and anguish, it's there in the gleam and shadow of Gerardo's recollection. The bodies sometimes glow like the Dada photos of Man Ray in the 20s. When Gerardo rolls his undershirt and drops his jeans and BVDs to masturbate, it's such a quiet, startling, reverent moment. Plain and accessible, powerful without the customary rashness or dirt. We shudder because Hernandez doesn't turn us into voyeurs. It's as if we're participating, sharing in a sacrament. In flashback, Bruno steps behind Gerardo to caress his torso and we only see his arms. It's as if Gerardo's exploring himself. Identities blur as they engage in mutual cherishing and epiphany. We want these scenes to last longer, but I think Hernandez was smart to pull back, to buzz our nerves with this symphony of torture and tantalization.

A Thousand Clouds of Peace compares favorably with Rainer Werner Fassbinder's Querelle and Joaão Pedro Rodrigues' O Fantasma. It has a semiotic confidence and sophistication unlike anything I've seen in a long time. It's strong but doesn't call attention to its shots, many of which are ravishing and eerie. The dialogue, internal, explicative, is mostly scaffolding for the camera, which does 90 percent of the work. It's not extravagant, like Querelle, or explicit, like O Fantasma. But Hernandez's skill at expressing coarse male idolatry, the empathy we feel for Gerardo's ache and disconsolation is a triumph of intuition and manifestation. It's what the best movie making is all about.

Posted Tuesday, June 26, 2007 2:42 AM by jlgdrd | with 0 comments

Beyond Reach: Son Frere

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Under discussion:

Shoot the Moon (1982)

Leaving Las Vegas (1995)

Persona (1966)

Son Frère (2003)

The controlling idea behind Patrice Chereau's Son Frere is the painful, tragic lack of closeness between men. It is mostly Luc's story, how his brother Thomas's disease becomes a watershed for their troubled relationship. An incident that Thomas cannot remember, and we are never shown, has had far reaching consequences that the two might never have confronted, had it not been for Thomas's sickness.

The plot is alarmingly simple. Thomas (Bruno Todeschini) comes back into his brother Luc's life because he does not want to face illness and possible mortality by himself. Of all the people in his life, he has sought out his younger brother for solace and comfort. Luc (Eric Caravaca) makes it clear that he will take care of him because this is what brothers do for one another, but he cannot forgive Thomas for deserting him. He'll go through the motions, but his heart won't be in it.

It is never quite revealed if Thomas has done something unforgivable and Luc has been forced to close his heart to survive emotional trauma. We don't understand if he has shut down because he won't or can't return to the closeness they once shared into their teens. But there is no doubt as to his brother's motives - he's dying and has no one else. Thomas is emaciated, and is put through one degrading, diminishing procedure after another.

In one particular scene, Luc watches as he is prepped for surgery, his body shaved by cheerful, solicitous nurses. Like most of the film, it is agonizing to watch. Luc never jokes with him to ease his discomfort, or asks for male nurses, or holds his hand. At times he almost seems to be enjoying his brother's humiliation.

As the movie progresses (and regresses) he becomes Thomas's sole caregiver and we can see, we can feel him trying to open up. He shares a touching anecdote from their childhood and when he is finished, can't tell if Thomas is awake or asleep. Understand this is not treated as humor. When Thomas falls even deeper into despair, Luc rubs his back as a spontaneous act of affection and tenderness, but at a loss as to how to reach him, for some meaningful way of connecting.

The fact that Luc is gay only intensifies the irony and misery that permeates Son Frere. There is quite a bit of male nudity and none of it is bracing or erotic. It only emphasizes how raw and empty the characters feel. Son Frere raises questions about queer sex and male attachment. In a heart to heart with Thomas's girlfriend Claire (Nathalie Boutefeu), Luc remembers he and his brother jerking each other off as teenagers.

When we see him having sex we sense he is trying to resolve thwarted intimacy with Thomas. I don't mean incest. Luc intuitively makes contact with strangers; he confides to his boyfriend Vincent (Sylvain Jacques) the disappointment that Thomas was never the kind of brother he needed him to be. He longs to heal but never gives this vital information to Thomas.

We must infer a lot from Son Frere's backstory, but I believe it comes by its subtext honestly. More than a few relationships between men were sabotaged by homophobia and you have to wonder if Luc's orientation and his brother's mysterious, platelet-robbing disease (platelets enable us to heal wounds) are metaphors for their destructive, ruined relationship. Chereau may be suggesting that if men bonded with abandon and devotion there might be less use of sex as a passkey. Son Frere explores the sad failure of men to love each other, to reach each other, even when the desire for closeness is keen. In the case of Luc, perhaps it's his male pride that gets in the way.

It's hard to justify my misgivings about Son Frere, a brilliant, excruciating film that feeds us the ashes of profound male estrangement without evincing the radiance that precedes it. Late into the film, we're stunned when a Marianne Faithfull song cues us for another drop; it doesn't seem possible, but sure enough, it happens. Movies like Leaving Las Vegas, Persona, or Shoot the Moon can be devastating, but sometimes that's what the best movie-making is all about. Chereau has brought the same level of intensity to relationships between men as Bergman brought to connections between women. He is fearless and audacious in his exploration.

Imitative fallacy debunks the transmission of content by matching that experience in the hearts and minds of the audience. I'm not sure if that applies here or not. Son Frere makes us ache for a catharsis that never comes. We're desperate for Luc to break down and reconcile with Thomas. Even when they profess love, they cannot make eye contact. Each loves the other but cannot connect in the present moment. Son Frere is frank enough to acknowledge it doesn't always happen. Even when we want it to.

Posted Tuesday, June 26, 2007 2:15 AM by jlgdrd | with 0 comments

Jonathan Caouette’s Fever Dream: Tarnation

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Tarnation (2003)

Upon release, Jonathan Caouette’s autobiographical documentary Tarnation caused quite a stir, and deservedly so. Using software that just happened to come with his partner’s new computer, and plundering home movies, photographs, video and audiotapes going back to when he was 11, Caouette has sculpted a stunning, powerful, excruciating film, playing beat the clock (to get it to the Sundance Festival) and bringing it in for an amount that gives new meaning to the term “shoestring budget” ($218.32). Could we call it a “toothpick budget”?

To my mind, Tarnation breaks many rules. It may be the ultimate “Hail Mary” film, taking incredible risks, using them as a springboard to intensity and transcendence. The content is often extremely, impossibly personal. Wrenching. But none of it feels self-indulgent or remotely self-pitying. Caouette himself spends a lot of time in front of the camera, but manages to avoid self-consciousness. A great deal of crucial (and harrowing) information is divulged in on-screen text, which, when you think about it, seems outré. Yet it has just the right touch. It buffers the jolt, keeps the material from overwhelming you.

Tarnation (a euphemistic term for damnation) charts the overlapping lives of three generations: Jonathan Caouette himself, his mother Renée, and his grandparents, Adolph and Rosemary. We learn about the key events that have shaped them and sent them careening into oblivion or despair, the ill-advised choices and random, traumatic incidents that have forever changed the course of their momentum. Tarnation divulges painful, unnerving material without repulsing us. Without prompting us to turn away, Caouette makes it clear that tragedies can (and do) happen randomly, that well-meaning families can mistakenly make decisions that will have horrific, grotesque consequences. And if anyone can be “punished” for their fallibility then none of us are safe. Tarnation suggests that it’s not about deserving the life we get, but surviving it.

There is a tenderness in Tarnation that tempers the unblinking footage of Caouette, his mother, his grandparents. We partake of their everyday lives, their quips, their friction, their meltdowns. We see Caouette’s parents and grandparents when they were young, attractive and successful, but also after time, abuse, and neglect have diminished them. Curiously, Caouette seems hardly changed at the age of 32. The adult seems childlike and the boy precocious and jaded.

Pretty early in the film, we see Jonathan perform a bizarre monologue, dressed in spare but convincing drag. "Hilary Laura Lou" talks about her husband’s abuse: pregnant and kicked in the stomach. Tied to the bed and beaten. Despite the trashy, cartoony vibe, it also has a dark, satirical side. We know this kind of thing goes on, but it’s obvious he’s not playing it straight. And when it hits us an 11-year-old boy is doing a viable read on this acrimonious spoof, it’s appalling, heartbreaking. Fascinating.

This is one of the glorious aspects of Tarnation . It’s a mistake, I believe, to take any particular sequence in just one way. His mother’s “pumpkin dance,” for instance. At first it just seems playful and jokey. But as it continues way past the point of joviality, we start to gather something’s wrong. And it’s not just Renée’s eccentricities or failure to respond to certain questions. Often it’s what she divulges when she cracks out of turn. I think Caouette gives most of this an off-hand, casual feel that enhances the plausibility, that makes it less far removed from our own experience, and therefore harder to dismiss.

It’s difficult to find the words to describe the visual style of Tarnation. When you consider the distinct, disparate elements, and how seamlessly, intuitively they hang together, it’s what? Cinematic collage of the highest order? But it goes so far beyond that. Montage may be the technique, but it’s all about motion and vibrance. It’s all about illumination and epiphany. We see Caouette’s early experiments in filmmaking, monologues and trashy-satirical slasher movies. Some of it reminded me of Kenneth Anger and Christopher Rage. Into this was spliced photographs of his grandparents, his mother, himself, Desiderata in voiceover (!) videotapes from the present, television shows, and movies from the '70s and '80s; on and on it goes.

Filmmakers have been dabbling with this technique for years. In music videos, television, feature-length films we see the dazzling special effects, the jittery, frantic, hand-held camera that distracts and intrigues but only intermittently connects to content. But Jonathan Caouette makes it all coalesce, with astonishing results. His devices, his jumps from raw to slick to grainy to trippy, bolster and deepen the subject matter. Tarnation could have been just another pastiche. Instead, by diligence, dedication and flying by the seat of his pants, he’s taken a quantum leap into mastery. Into brilliance.

Posted Tuesday, June 26, 2007 1:59 AM by jlgdrd | with 0 comments

Wicked Fun

A Thousand Clouds of Peace: Poetry of Loss

Beyond Reach: Son Frere

Jonathan Caouette’s Fever Dream: Tarnation

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