Risselada Blog

Under discussion:

Ashes and Diamonds  (1958)

A Generation  (1954)

Kanal  (1957)

This is the second feature length film I've seen by director Andrzej Wajda.  I chose to watch this film based on previous good ratings I've given other films by this director and to better my favorite directors by algorithm listing.

Kanal

I'm always so thrilled to find new movies as great as this.  It's not great because everything that happens in it is so pleasant, but because (like several of my favorite movies) it is so apt in portraying the true horrors war and revolution, and more specifically what this particular moment for people like this in the Warsaw Uprising may have been like.  In some ways realistically and in some ways more poetically.

It's an excellent ensemble movie like a lot of good war movies are, but this one really steps it up to the highest level.  So many emotions.  You are there with the characters, feeling the will to keep going on, and at the same time the desperation that the efforts will most likely all be useless.  Also, add this one to the short list of the most memorable final images.

Even better than the amazing A Generation which precedes it in Wajda's thematic war trilogy, I'm quite excited now to see the final film Ashes and Diamonds.

Andrzej Wajda:
Total feature length films seen: 2
Previous average film score: 9
New average film score: 9.5

Rating: 10/10

Under discussion:

The Gold Rush  (1925)

The Chechakos  (1924)

The Chechahcos

From disc three of the DVD set "Treasures From American Film Archives".  An interesting silent feature set in the Alaska gold rush from director Lewis H. Moomaw.  This is his only surviving film.  Some action, romance, drama.  The different settings like the boat, the lodges, and especially the Alaska landscapes are major points of interest as well though.  It was said Chaplin got some ideas from this film for The Gold Rush.

Rating: 7/10

Under discussion:

The Butcher  (1970)

This is the first film I've seen by director Claude Chabrol.

Le boucher (The Butcher)

I first read about Charbrol as a master of suspense like Hitchcock or Clouzot, but with his own kind of psychological, sociological, and political slant.  And he is kind of coming out of the French New Wave so there's that kind of feeling about it.

I'll admit the suspense and mood were done well, but the story itself was not that great.  I understand that the story was kind of commenting on and playing on conventions and the main point was the examination of characters.  But I didn't connect with any of the characters, especially not the protagonist played by his wife and muse Stéphane Audran, Charbrol's muse and wife.  She creeped me out from the very beginning.  Something just about the way she dressed and her makeup might have been part of it.  I understand the characters were supposed to be a bit creepy and enigmatic, hiding stuff from their past.  I can understand what he was going for by stepping away and examining it, but if I'm bored to death through all of it up to the end, then I'm just not going to give it a very high rating.

4/10