Those two were real class, at the end : Responses by Tweet (and not) to La belle époque (2019)

Responses by Tweet (and not) [an accreting list] to La belle époque (2019)

More views of - or before - Cambridge Film Festival 2019 (17 to 24 October)
(Click here to go directly to the Festival web-site)

20 November

Responses by Tweet (and not) [an accreting list] to La belle époque (2019)

* With so many (doubtful ?) Twitter-accounts that appear when searching by film-title for the authenticated account, which are claiming to offer free HD streaming of the film, this seemed the safest pick. :)

— THE AGENT APSLEY #ScrapUniversalCredit #JC4PM2019 (@THEAGENTAPSLEY) November 21, 2019

Key film-references (in order of significance) :

* The Game (1997)
* Midnight in Paris (2011)
* Westworld (1973)
* The Truman Show (1998)
* Les Beaux Jours (Bright Days Ahead) (2013)
* A Fish called Wanda (1988)
* Nathalie (2001)
* Souvenir (2016)


A film whose (unexplained**) opening, which we may have forgotten by the time of its descent into romantic comedy (which are usually either 'ardour cooled' [Le Week-End (2013)], or 'hate at first sight' [You've Got Mail (1998)]), promised more interesting fare, as if a significant riff on The Game (1982) and others (as just listed) :

In its own terms, it got us to where it wanted, but its ideas could probably have done with being thinned out, so that - some adept pacing and editing apart, which certainly kept the story's tick-over going in the important moments - it did not feel as if some strands had been mimetic of the possibility of something more, but essentially thrown out (but kept in) as misleading pointers (rather than feeling like 'true' misdirections) and / or ideas that had been sent down a dead end :

For a film, itself shot on a set, that is largely set on a set, it is necessarily likely to get quite a bit Sunset Blvd. (1950) [not to say Mulholland Drive (2001)].

[...]


Other references :

* Hope Springs (2012)
* Les émotifs anonymes (Romantics Anonymous) (2010)
* The Pornographer (2001)
* Le Week-End (2013)
* Absolute Beginners (1986)


[...]


If you want to Tweet, Tweet away here

Unless stated otherwise, all films reviewed were screened at Festival Central (Arts Picturehouse, Cambridge)

Lord Summerisle, I presume ?

This is a review of The Wicker Man (1973)

More views of - or before - Cambridge Film Festival 2013
(Click here to go directly to the Festival web-site)

18 October

This is a review of The Wicker Man (1973)

If The Wicker Man (1973) were really a Laplacean fantasy (wicker is produced, because the material is pliant), subverting the notion of free will, one would be better off with The Game (1997), or reading Borges.

As it cannot sustainably be viewed on that level, comparisons with the novel The Magus, even if John Fowles disowned it, are inevitable (and the Anthony Quinn film of 1968, which was made from it, and which pre-dates this one) : an island, beautiful women, playing games, a man in charge who claims to be a channel for other forces, temptation, death.

Only that Quinn is a much better ambiguous conjuror than Christopher Lee's nature-worshipping, free-loving laird, and his discrete retreat is more sinister than a whole island of cult-followers. That said, I would have more time for Edward Woodward any time than for Michael Caine, most of all in these films.


Pondering on the cult following for these cult followers (and their - female - nakedness)...

Not that his shock and anguish at the happenings are not to be more than counterbalanced by the charms of Britt Ekland, Diane Cilento and Lindsay Kemp, in a film that - as films of those times did - celebrates sexual freedom by largely having the bodies of females exposed, with the men's libidos represented by a dimly lit orgy, preceded by bawdy songs in the pub.

Apparently, Ekland complained that the naked gyrations in front of a cupboard, cut with shots of her walking topless around her character's bedroom, were not hers - they were out of keeping stylistically, and almost showed more than they should. That (and the apparent dubbing of Ekland) apart, she acted excellently as a succubus, and Woodward's frustration, desire, were palpable in his acting.


A horror film ? If one had not seen the poster, it might not have been evident where all this was going, and the horror only consists in Woodward's heartfelt cries of grief, grounded on the beliefs that we have seen set in opposition throughout to those of the islanders - I have no notion of the genre, but I cannot see any more than a <i>Lord of the Flies</i> sort of extremity to the drama.

A cult film ? I am told that, as with <i>The Sound of Music</i>, there are sing-a-longs (unlikely to attract the same audience, as the songs are lewd ?), but cannot quite fathom why that would appeal - cult following would suggest that seeing Woodward duped and suffer over and over is a pull, but I do not feel such a desire, as it is not even as if the journey is that clever or brilliantly executed.


Interestingly, screenwriter Anthony Schaffer (Peter's brother) married Cilento in 1985...


Post-script (by Tweet) - 31 October 2021 :

Unless it's, ahem, a broad church¹, I can't see The Wicker Man² (1973) as horror³ :

It's barely⁴ a fable (or parable) about perversely ignoring all the evidence.

¹ Not a 'strait' gate.

² One of the most mispronounced titles (the sense needs stress on the last word) ?

1 / 2

— THE AGENT APSLEY #ScrapUniversalCredit #JC4PM2019 (@THEAGENTAPSLEY) October 31, 2021

Unless it's, ahem, a broad church¹, I can't see The Wicker Man² (1973) as horror³ :

It's barely⁴ a fable (or parable) about perversely ignoring all the evidence.

¹ Not a 'strait' gate.

² One of the most mispronounced titles (the sense needs stress on the last word) ?

1 / 2

— THE AGENT APSLEY #ScrapUniversalCredit #JC4PM2019 (@THEAGENTAPSLEY) October 31, 2021

If you want to Tweet, Tweet away here

Unless stated otherwise, all films reviewed were screened at Festival Central (Arts Picturehouse, Cambridge)