Spitball Army

watched Jan 10, 2018
spitballarmy’s review published on Letterboxd:

6.6
[DVD]

This film had a symmetry that I liked, and Clair’s uses of sound were creative, even considering that stretches of the film are basically silent. The print on the Criterion DVD I watched was pretty scratchy and damaged; I have clearly gotten spoiled by their recent restoration work.

watched Jan 6, 2018
spitballarmy’s review published in Letterboxd:

8.7
[blu-ray]

Creepy as all get out. I had just watched Franju’s BLOOD OF THE BEASTS, which had my stomach doing backflips, and, when the doctor pulled out his scalpel here, I thought, “Here we go again!”

Interesting that certain of this film’s thematic elements and devices can be found in later films: THE SILENCE OF THE LAMBS and HANNIBAL (for different reasons), Almodovar’s THE SKIN I LIVE IN, and THE DIVING BELL AND THE BUTTERFLY.

I hadn’t made the connection that Edith Scob, who plays the girl in the mask, played the matriarch in SUMMER HOURS, one of my favorite contemporary French films. This represents a span of about fifty years between these two films and her filmography, once I pulled it up, documents her involvement in several acclaimed films.

watched Jan 6, 2018
spitballarmy’s review published on Letterboxd:

9.0
[blu-ray]

The idyllic outskirts of Paris are juxtaposed with the adjacent slaughterhouses, where horses and cattle are taken to be systematically dismembered and distributed throughout the community (for example, the narrator states, “the fatty scraps will be collected by nuns,” and we are left to wonder for what purpose – soap? candles?). The workmen go about their grotesque jobs dispassionately – even whistling – as if they were shoveling snow, or folding laundry, and then director Franju cuts to a closeup of a young couple in full lip-lock on a bridge – the same bridge, perhaps, that is then used to drive the cattle upon to their demise. The killings are accompanied by the narrator’s matter-of-fact description of the activities (“To keep veal meat white, decapitation is used to drain all blood. The dead animal still twitches, but they’re only involuntary reflexes. The heads are stamped to identify and count the cattle.”), and, in this particular scene, the flayed bodies of the calves are left laying on tables, steaming above the blood-strewn floor like slain angels.

Then, the voice-over clarifies what, perhaps, was the social-message intent of the French filmmaker, in this work created only four years after the Holocaust, as it describes lambs literally, on screen, being led to slaughter: “The others follow obediently, bleating like condemned men who sing yet know their song to be useless.”

This audacious short film really tested the limits of watchability for me, but felt both necessary and courageous. I won’t deny, though, that I did feel like Alex in A CLOCKWORK ORANGE with his eyes propped open, as I forced myself to watch it.

watched Jan 04, 2018
spitballarmy’s review published on Letterboxd:

9.1
[blu-ray, Netflix]

I found practically everything about this to be note-perfect, from the relentless self-examination of the main character, to the clear-eyed portrayal of head-on idealism among college students, the duelling side effects of privilege (while it may get you the best table in a restaurant, it can rob your soul of empathy), and the tentative scratchy violin creeping through the film’s score. I’ve seen most of Mike White’s films, but none have had the fine balance of human comedy (without big laughs) and the pathos of adult pain quite like this. Above all, beautifully written, but Ben Stiller, who I haven’t previously allowed due credit to as an actor, gives what may be a career-best performance.