Review CXVI - Rope

Review 116
Rope (1948)

The end of August is fast approaching, and that also means a new school semester is right around the corner. Starting something new this time around, so here's hoping all goes well! What a better way to celebrate than with Alfred Hitchcock's 1948 classic, Rope, starring John Dall, Farley Granger, and James Stewart? The story is based on the events of Leopold and Loeb's killing of an innocent boy after believing they had reached Nietzsche's übermensch status. Let's get a chokehold on this review! (Completely forced, sorry.)

Brandon (John Dall) convinces Philip (Farley Granger) to kill their friend, David (Dick Hogan), as he believes the two have reached a status that puts them above murder. But this isn't enough - Brandon decides, in order to show his superiority, to host a party, inviting David's father, Mr. Kentley (Cedric Hardwicke), David's aunt (Constance Collier), his lover, Janet (Joan Chandler), and the three's old headmaster, Rupert Cadell (James Stewart), who may have more to do with the killing than he realises.

The film consisted of super long shots, each approximately ten minutes each, and that is something I really liked about Rope. I've always thought theatre is probably much more difficult than film if only because there are no second chances, and this film shows that these actors were nothing less than their theatre counterparts. And yes, indeed, the acting was grand. Anyway, back to cinematography... Though the shots were long, they never got boring or made you feel like they were super lengthy. Alfred Hitchcock made the camera move around, follow characters, tell a story on its own without accompanying dialogue... Pretty cool stuff!

I watched the film with a friend, and once it was over, he commented on how gay the protagonists were. I hadn't even picked up on, completely absorbed by the murder it was based on. Plus, to me, poshy characters always came off as a bit more feminine to me, so I wasn't convinced... Until I looked at the facts. It's funny how transparent a film can be once you catch one little hint. I think the biggest thing I noticed was the clue from the closet, an obvious euphemism for being gay. I also recognised the first movement from Trois mouvements perpétuels from Poulenc, and wondered if Poulenc was gay - he was, struggling with his sexuality, similar to the character who speeds along his piece in the film (please listen to a beautiful version of the song here). Honestly, this little extra twist to the film is what made it for me. In my last review, I was déçue by the fact that I hadn't caught a deeper meaning for Dogtooth and, thus, couldn't say I really got the film. Once you really take cinema as an art within an art, you definitely get more for your buck.

Rope is not the best film I've seen, but it's definitely a fun watch with a good introduction to hidden meanings in film. You'll be positively gay after checking this one out.

Review CXV - Dogtooth

Review 115
Dogtooth (2009)

I'm sorry for vanishing. I've been knitting like a fiend before school starts again, which means I just watch movies and knit and never review them... Anyway, I was working when someone recommended I watch a "really messed up film". The film was Yorgos Lanthimos' Dogtooth. I was excited - this would be the first film from Greece I'd ever seen, but I was skeptical as to how crazy it would really be. Well, we'll explore that.

What if we could hide the dangers of the outside from our children? A mother and father decide to take up the challenge and keep their three children isolated from society until they "lose their canine teeth". Words referring to the outside are changed to perceivable objects in the house or garden, and planes are said to be toys that will fall in the garden. But innocence only prevails for so long...

Okay, yes, the movie is messed up. While every parent wishes to protect their children, you would never imagine that if they were actually able to do it, it would lead to something like this. However, I'm assuming this film has a deeper meaning than just this "keeping children innocent"... My only guess is maybe related to keeping the family so close-knit? Maybe refusing your children to marry only the people you wish for them to marry? Or maybe it has to do with globalisation, that is inevitable, and that Greece can't stay hidden away forever from the American culture? Maybe it is looking at how the new generation has to struggle with keeping up with Greek values and not completely moving to a Western way of thinking? I can't figure it out because I know practically nothing about Greece's affairs, except for the recent public demand of the rejection of the Euro, a particular globalised ideal. Really, I haven't figured it out, so I feel a bit sad because I'm obviously missing out on something important that let this film win the Un Certain Regard prize at the Cannes film festival.

Despite not knowing the hidden message, I thought the film was... okay. I was actually expecting something a bit more beautiful considering the prize it won. The shots were clean and smooth, the palette nice and consistent, but I didn't have the magic of Get Carter for example. That had some nifty camera work, but Dogtooth? Not really. Again, it had a nice palette and real clean shots, but there was nothing that grabbed my eye in terms of shot dynamics.

The plot, well, I thought it was pretty crazy, but the parents were pretty freakin' crazy, man. There's keeping them innocent, but there's being super perverse and messed up about it, which is what this was. I don't know how the father expected the outside girl from security to keep private about everything. I also think he would have been at least a little concerned about his doctor daughter (you'll see who I'm referring to if you checked out the film) doing these crazy things to your son. I think you'd be concerned about the behaviour from your son in relation to a cat. It's not like the mother and father are ignorant - they have lived in the outside world. I know that isn't the point of the film, but seriously, these guys are idiots. I would have been more careful in my approach so my children would be more normal.

Honestly, it's hard to review the movie given that I didn't understand the hidden meaning and was not particularly excited by it. In fact, it makes me a bit sad that the Cannes festival is choosing films like these, probably just because they're daring, violent, and nude. However, Dogtooth is not even a bad example. Dogtooth still takes an interesting idea and plays it out in a way you wouldn't expect. But freakin' La vie d'Adèle, also known as Blue is the Warmest Colour? My boyfriend and I were going to watch it, but we ended up with a copy playing the time at the top. He wanted to show me how bad it was, so he skipped to a random scene. The scene just so happened to be basically a sex scene from a porn movie. I am not even joking. And that shit was long. It probably went on for five minutes, or even ten. This is what is winning a prize? A freakin' porno? Maybe the film has something else going for it, but ten minutes of sex? It made me pretty disappointed, let me tell you. But maybe I'm just conservative like that... ._. Yeah, right.

Dogtooth is not bad, but it really isn't anything special. It had a few funny scenes, and I actually really liked Angeliki Papoulia's performance, but not enough to recommend this one.