Limite (1931) :(((

If all you can think about is how much you wish you had a handful of Dramamine and speed while watching a film then you are not having an enjoyable viewing experience.

Director Mario Peixoto’s Limite (1931) is not the worst “art” film I’ve ever seen, but it surely wasn’t good, either.  In general, I don’t like experimental film. This admission capped with the fact that this was also a silent experimental film only seemed to heighten my abhorrence.  And, unlike other avant garde films that I disliked (see L'age d'or and Un Chien Andalou), Limite also had the indecency to be exceedingly long—114 minutes of pain.

In a rowboat to nowhere three nameless people—two women (Olga Breno and Tatiana Rey) and one man (Brutus Pedreira) indefinitely and aimlessly drift at sea.  Some semblance of what led them to this sea of abyss is told via flashbacks—but even those don’t really explain how the hell these people ended up floating in a boat together.  As such, the “story” made absolutely no sense and drug on forever—hence my need for a handful of speed.

And what of my desire for Dramamine?  Spinning, swerving, spiraling, and twirling cameras, surprisingly, capture those types of images. I suppose this is where the experimental comes into play and why this is viewed as a “cult” film, but it just gave me a migraine. 

Overall, I hated it.  The best part of the film was when they showed a clip of an old Little Tramp film.  For one blissful minute in Limite I didn’t want to scream, “Is it over YET?”

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Skyfall (2012) **

Daniel Craig is certainly the best Bond since Sean Connery, and he is most assuredly the best looking Bond ever.  Yet, once I pushed all of that aside and actually watched director Sam Mendes’ Skyfall (2012) I wasn’t all that amused.  Action sequences galore—guns, explosions, runaway trains, speeding cars and motorcycles—and a crazy baddie (played by Javier Bardem) ripe for a visit with Freud just isn’t enough for me.  Of course, I’m not a 007 enthusiast and so the film that celebrates Bond’s 50th Anniversary wasn’t as special for me as it may have been for others.

Skyfall is about resurrection—and I expect continuation of the franchise.  A wild chase through the streets of Istanbul (and the aisles of the Grand Bazaar) finds Bond atop a speeding train trying to recapture a stolen hard drive that contains the names of MI6 agents.  When M (Judi Dench) orders Eve Moneypenny (Naomie Harris) to take out the man with the hard drive (Ola Rapace), she accidentally shoots Bond and he is presumed dead.  When MI6 headquarters are blown up, Bond comes out of hiding. Hooked on booze and pills and out of shape, Bond is asked to hunt down the man behind the assault on the beacon of British intelligence.  He finds a psychopath named Raoul Silva (Bardem), who has it in for M because she once traded him for other agents and cyanide destroyed his teeth. The remainder of the film revolves around some Freudian feud between Silva, M, and Bond, and only the death of one or two of them can bring it to an end.

Like all Bond films, the production was well traveled—Istanbul, Shanghai, Macau, London, and the moors of Scotland all make an appearance.  Roger Deakins’ cinematography is spot on as usual (see Barton Fink, No Country for Old Men, and O Brother, Where Art Thou?, among many others) and he does a great job with all of the exterior shots. The shots of the Underground and the underground labyrinth that MI6 relocates to are tightly constructed and do a nice job of showcasing the Old Vic tunnels.  If I had to pick one scene that really stood out, it would be Bond’s waterway entrance into Macau—a dark night and sea illuminated by water lanterns always makes for a dramatic entrance.

And, just as every Bond film must have a crazy villain, Skyfall has Javier Bardem as Silva. Obviously Bardem knows how to play a psychopath (see, again, No Country for Old Men), but this particular psycho was a bit over the top—of course, Bond usually requires an over the top nutter. The biggest irritant was that Bardem was a blonde with orange eyebrows, but his obsession with M was also troubling.  Referring to her as “Mother” and blowing up buildings, the Tube, and a nice Scottish manor house only to ask her to blow out both their brains just seemed counterproductive.

The objectification of women is a Bond staple, but somehow, over the years this has been toned down a tad. Besides having  sex with an unnamed woman whilst on sabbatical and engaging in flirtatious talk with Ms. Moneypenny, there was only Berenice Marlohe to have sex with in a shower before her untimely death.  Of course, with M playing such a pivotal role in Skyfall, I can see why the old female objectification theme had to be somewhat diminished.  We will no doubt see Ms. Moneypenny in the next Bond film and with Ralph Fiennes taking over as M, perhaps we should wait until Bond No. 24 to see if this continues.  Still, it was nice seeing more of Craig’s shapely physique than any would-be Bond Girl.

Overall, Skyfall was your usual action film.  Boom, bang, and pow happened.  Things exploded, people got shot and stabbed, and the good guy won.  I was not compelled by the story or bowled over by anyone’s performance.  There were pretty places and people to look at and a lot of ado about nothing happened.  Quite simple, it was a Bond movie.

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Lawrence of Arabia (1962 ) ***

Director David Lean’s Lawrence of Arabia (1962) is an epic, three and half hour-plus film about how T.E. Lawrence (Peter O’Toole) unwittingly won Saudi Arabia for the British military during World War I.  On the one hand you could say the production was grand and the cast renowned, but on the other hand you could say the film was too long and comprised solely of men—there are only brief sightings of women.  As such, the film often drags and has a primarily testosterone infused plot—even if there are some homoerotic themes to be found.

The film was nominated for a whopping 10 Academy Awards and won seven: Best Picture, Art Direction, Cinematography, Editing, Sound, Original Score, and Best Director.  While it garnered two acting nominations, I must say that I was not overly impressed by anyone in this dream cast other than Alec Guinness and Omar Sharif. For me, O’Toole gets a bit hammy in this and Anthony Quinn’s performance is just the epitome of overacting.  Perhaps Sharif had an advantage on most of the cast, as he was actually from the Middle East (Egypt), but his performance as Sherif Ali is engaging and believable, and he deserved his Best Supporting Actor nomination. While Guinness may not have been from the Middle East, he is particularly memorable as King Faisal. I expect he took great pride in doing so well in a role that was originally supposed to be played by Laurence Olivier.

Whenever I think about Lawrence of Arabia I remember an endless desert, camels, and trains being blown up.  The sheer size of the production is mind-boggling, which is one of the reasons I think it is still so highly regarded by film critics.  Filming with a cast of thousands, comprised of both people and animals, in the desert was a monumental task for Lean.  Of course, Lean was no stranger to large productions (The Bridge on the River Kwai and Oliver Twist), so he knew quite well how to be the ringmaster of such a massive circus.  He benefitted greatly from having one of the greatest British cinematographers, F.A. Young, doing the heavy lifting.  Really, it’s not the story that makes Lawrence of Arabia such a memorable movie—it’s all about the images captured by Young. And, these striking images paired with Maurice Jones’ unforgettable score make the perfect pairing. 

In a post-colonial world, Lawrence of Arabia can be a troubling film.  It was actually banned in many Middle Eastern countries (sans Egypt) because of the way it depicted Arabs. The whole idea that Lawrence was some sort of messianic figure to the Arabs somehow infantilizes them.  Also, the depiction of Arabs as gullible savages did not play well in newly emancipated Arab nations.  While no one should ever condone terrorism, there is a reason many in the Middle East don’t like Westerners—you ask them to help you free themselves from the yolks of the Ottoman Empire with the promise of self-rule and then take them over yourselves to plunder their resources (mainly petroleum and gemstones) and there is bound to be some animosity. 

Overall, Lawrence of Arabia is a masterful work of brilliant cinematography.  The story is somewhat interesting, but if you are a student of history the blatant inaccuracies in the movie can be unpleasant to endure. Fine performances from Sharif and Guinness, at least, temper this unpleasantness. 

 

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