SLIFF 2014: The Major

Title: The Major

Country: Russia

Rating: 5.5

                Police commander Sergei Sobolev gets the call that his wife is in labor and rushes through the winter streets to the hospital weaving in and out of traffic. He spins out of control, both literally and figuratively, at a remote bus stop, killing a young boy in front of his mother. Horrified more by the legal consequences for himself than about the magnitude of the mother’s loss, he calls in his pals on the force and arranged to cover up the crime. The parents don’t take this sitting down and a fellow officer ends up dead in a tense police station standoff.

                [Spoiler paragraph] Sergei repents of his crime, rather tardily, after realizing that his partner, Pavel (played by the director Yuri Bykov, who gives the film’s standout performance), plans to kill the mother before she can testify against them. He becomes her unlikely rescuer as the two try to lay low until Internal Affairs can arrive. But Pavel won’t leave them alone, and gives Sergei a terrible choice: either the woman dies, or his wife does.

                The Major is a cop movie with a lot more on its mind than most. While a lot of cop movies deal with police corruption, few start with the hero being so unsympathetically corrupt himself. This makes Sergei rather fascinating, but it also makes his later conversion rather implausible, even inexplicable. The more the moral high ground shifted around, the more the story intrigued me, but the character’s psychology escaped me. A found the ending to be powerful, but strangely unconvincing.

                What The Major could probably use is a lot more talking and a lot less shouting. Characters express themselves in brooding silences and sudden outbursts rather than in conversations. Cop movies have taught me that this is just the way cops are, both in the US and apparently in Russia, but I could have used something more humanizing.

                I’m probably unfairly lukewarm about The Major because I saw the far more audacious ex-Soviet corruption expose drama The Tribe a few days earlier (review coming soon!), and by comparison the former is pretty tame and conventional. But still, there is some good material here and a willingness to tweak the established cop movie formulas in a meaningful way.

Film Atlas (Russia): The Dawns Here Are Quiet

Country: Russia

Title: The Dawns Here Are Quiet / A Zori Zdes Tikhie (1972)

Sometime during WWII Sergeant Vaskov is running an unimportant anti-aircraft encampment far from the German front. Discipline is slack and the base has a reputation for drinking, carousal and fraternization with the local women. After failing a military inspection, Vaskov’s men are reassigned and he's given new soldiers less susceptible to the same old problems: an all women unit. Vaskov initially has trouble taking the new recruits seriously, maintaining authority and crafting them into an effective fight force, but he soon warms to them and earns their trust. In the second part of the film Vaskov leads a small team of five women to capture German paratroopers that were seen landing in a nearby forest. After crossing difficult terrain they find themselves facing a superior force, better trained and better armed. Vaskov and the five women are put to the test, knowing they have little chance of survival.

The nostalgia-saturated lightly-comedic first act of The Dawns Here Are Quiet caused me to drop my guard. I enjoyed the send-up of laidback military outposts, the mildly gender-progressive character development and the black-and-white woodland and swampland scenery, but I quickly and quite wrongly wrote this off as not likely to be the classic war film that Russian critics had claimed. That’s because director Stanislav Rostotsky carefully ‘carefree’ setup is all about drawing you in so that when the tone switches to a war-is-hell, guns-can-jam, anyone-can-die game of cat-and-mouse you just aren’t prepared, much like the main characters. 

Rostotsky does an excellent job establishing the stakes despite the small-scale (6 vs. 16) of this obscure skirmish. The limited cast helps means more time to establish each woman individually, counter to the genre’s tendency for spectacle-driven clashes between waves of faceless grunts. We grow to understand and like these Soviet soldiers; to know their strengths and weaknesses. We share Vaskov’s pride in their bravery, cunning, stealth and increasing competence; like many of the best war films, this is about outthinking an opponent that you can’t outgun. We also feel Vaskov’s pain, cracking through his stoic face, as he accepts their likely fates.

My Favorites:

The Dawns Here Are Quiet

Stalker

Ivan's Childhood

Leviathan (2014)
Letter Never Sent

Hamlet (1964)

Come and See

The Mirror
Wings (1966)
Happiness (1934)

Strike (1925)
I Am Twenty

Trial on the Road

The New Gulliver

Solaris (1972)

The Cranes Are Flying

Battleship Potemkin

King Lear (1971)

The Return
Burnt by the Sun

The Forty-First
The Ascent

The Amphibious Man
The Cat Who Walked By Herself

The Tale of Tsar Saltan (1966)
Jolly Fellows / Moscow Laughs

Major Directors:
Boris Barnet, Yevgeni Bauer, Mark Donskoi, Sergei Eisenstein, Mikhail Kalatozov, Marlen Khutsiev, Nikita Mikhalkov, Kira Muratova, Vsevolod Pudovkin, Larisa Shepitko, Alexander Sokurov, Andrei Tarkovsky

Review of The Tale of Tsar Saltan (1966)

Here’s some of my mental diary entries from a couple of days ago:
00:00:00 I put my latest Netflix disc into my DVD player and take my seat.
00:00:18 The DVD menu appears (in Russian) and I become immediately aware that I have accidently requested the wrong movie.
00:00:40 After getting the menu to show up in English I decide I’ll give the movie a chance anyway. Otherwise, I will no longer have an excuse not to get some chores done around the apartment.
00:01:30 Movie begins. No subtitle options. I set the audio to English. Three women (sisters?) start speaking in terrible dubbed rhymes. I reconsider previous decision.
00:08:00 Strange little troll creatures appear and start attacking a medieval kingdom. I’m starting to kind of like the movie.
00:15:00 I’m totally drawn into the strange Soviet-era fairy-tale that is unfolding and quite honestly impressed by some of the special effects and visual design efforts. I’m learning to stomach the awful poetry translation.
00:82:00 Movie ends. Evening deemed a success.

So that’s how I came to see “The Tale of Tsar Saltan” (1966) by Russia’s cinematic wizard Aleksandr Ptushko. I didn’t recognize his name at first, but I’ve actually been looking for his groundbreaking puppet film “The New Gulliver” (1935) for quite some time (if anyone knows where I can buy a subtitled version, please let me know). I’d also seen one of his lesser films on MST3K, but don’t hold that against him. Despite my lack of real familiarity, I’m thinking Ptushko is definitely a director worth knowing.

“The Tale of Tsar Saltan” starts out in typical fairy-tale fashion with a humble maiden getting wed to the Tsar and her two jealous sisters plotting to make the marriage as brief as possible. While Tsar Saltan is out fighting armies of pygmy trolls, his wife gives birth to their son Gvidon. The villains do some creative editing on their correspondences and make it appear that Saltan wants his family sealed in a barrel and dropped to the bottom of the sea. Despondent, but blindly obedient, his vassals do the deed.

But wait! The Tsarina’s beseeches the sea to spare her and they wash up on an empty island with only a single tree. Her fast-growing son has already become a full-grown man, and he rescues a swan who helps make him king of a frozen city full of domes and spires. He lives in great wealth due to a singing squirrel who procures golden emerald-filled nuts, but he continues to feel that something is missing. It isn’t a private army of amphibious giants or a beautiful wife with a precious gem shining from her forehead. Those help, sure, but it’s a chance to meet his father that brings about the ballet finale.

This plot felt mighty odd to me, but it certainly beat watching another uninspired Cinderella adaptation and Ptushko makes it more exhilarating still through his knack for fantastic use of color and magical imagery. I’m wondering if Russian filmgoers would have been so familiar with the story that they wouldn’t have been as dumbfounded by it (can someone from Russia answer that?), but I really enjoyed being in the state of I-have-no-idea-what-crazy-twist-is-coming-next for pretty much the whole duration.

The story does have some flaws, particularly the use of fairy-tale repetition and cardboard characters. The acting is pretty theatrical, with only Larisa Golubkina (as the Tsarina) excelling, which is actually especially impressive since she is really only required to be modest and pretty. The writing can also be pretty painful, though I’m sure in Russian the original 1831 poem by Aleksandr Pushkin’s is considerably more respectable. Translating across languages while trying to maintain the rhyme scheme and match lip movements is doubtlessly a nigh-impossible task, but I think they could have outdone “I’m going to go walk over there / and see if I can hunt a hare” (he then kills a bird of prey) or “Why, O Prince, are you so sad / When on this day you should be glad?”

But I need to get on to the real point of “The Tale of Tsar Saltan,” which is the presentation. Everything is just so ambitious and clever and gorgeous. The costumes are bold and shiny, with the distinctive trolls making a fine contrast. I’m not quite sure how Ptushko made them so short (midgets? children? actors bent forward with their elbows on their knees?), but they’re so darn adorably evil. When he brings in the giants he mostly relies on forced perspective (much the same way Peter Jackson did to make his Hobbits appear so short), with many of the set pieces rivaling Karel Zeman for technical challenge. In one scene where the giants attack a ship, he cuts between two versions: one with a regular-size ship and forced-perspective giants and another with regular-size giants a smaller replica of the ship populated by children wearing the costumes (and conveniently not facing the camera).

The puppetry used for the singing and dancing squirrel is rather silly (expect a smidgeon of similarly head-shaking Soviet sight-gags throughout), but otherwise the island kingdoms are magnificent. The huge-looking cityscapes are accomplished by using sets that run seamlessly into impeccable murals. Gvidon’s tour of the silent city, complete with flash-frozen running children, spouting fountains and a dove flying from a tree of crystal apples, is an unforgettable sequence.

Even though it’s often easy to see through the special effects, I don’t consider their datedness to be a bad thing. One can easily sit back and suspend disbelief or admire the amount of craft that went into them. I’d suspect that modern viewers, especially kid weaned on CG, may find the innovative tricks quite charming and well fitted to the story.

I only wish I could show you some screenshots. The sketchy DVD wasn’t recognized by my computer, so you’ll have to use your imagination. You can also check out some of the artwork by Ivan Bilibin that inspired Pushko’s adaptation here.

Anyone with a taste for fantasy should give this a chance. Preferably, find a copy better than the one I watched. “The Tale of Tsar Saltan” isn’t likely to ever get as much attention as “The Thief of Bagdad,” “The Wizard of Oz” or “The Neverending Story,” but it does deserve more than its measly 59 votes. I only wish I’d watched it on purpose.

Walrus Rating: 7.5

Iceberg Arena: The Cat Countdown Part II

This is the second part of a three part series counting down the best animated cat movies I’ve seen. The final part will feature canine and rodent cinema.


5. Night on the Galactic Railroad (1985)

“Night on the Galactic Railroad” adapts freely from the novel by the pre-war Buddhist writer Kenji Miyazawa about the poor son of sick mother, Giovanni, and his mysterious train voyage across the stars with his best friend Campanella. The galactic railroad takes them through themed constellation stations full of surreal landmarks and eccentric passengers, including a man who harvests herons for candy and the ghostly souls of the sunken Titanic. Giovanni begins to suspect that the train is taking Campanella to afterlife (the Southern Cross), a fear that is confirmed when he wakes up on Earth alone and learns that Campanella drowned during the night’s moon festival while saving the school bully.

Director Sugii’s lugubrious religious allegory unsettled fans of the original work who weren’t expecting the characters to be cats (an artistic choice never explained) and confused those unfamiliar with the novella (amongst them, me) even more. It doesn’t help that the chapter titles are given in Esperanto and the thick symbolism is at once heavy-handed (prepare yourself for a bevy of crosses) and inscrutable (what the hell is with the bird candy guy?). Yet what emerges from the gentle dreamlike flow of the adventure is a mature and emotionally resonant tale about a brave child’s imagination, curiosity, friendship and loss. The low-on-action pacing and atmospheric spiritualism hasn’t been welcomed by fans of conventional American or Japanese anime, but I find it, along with “Angel Egg,” to be a worthwhile experiment.

4. The Cat Returns (2002)

Ghibli’s semi-sequel to “Whisper of the Hearts” (of which “The Cat Returns” is something of a story-within-a-story) is a light-hearted fantasy about a schoolgirl named Haru who can understand cats. One day she instinctively saves the life of a cat in danger and learns that he’s the prince of Cat Kingdom. Amongst the many rewards she’d prefer to reject are dead mice and a marriage proposal that leaves both parties unhappy. A mysterious voice advises Haru to seek out the Baron, a cat statue come to life, and Muta, an obese feline rogue, to save her from transforming into a cat and losing her stake in the human world.

Like with other Ghibli films, especially the kid-friendly “My Neighbor Totoro” and “Kiki’s Delivery Service,” this film is warm-hearted, sincere and appropriate for pretty much all ages. The plot can be a little too cute for its own good, but the characters are well-realized enough to add a necessary grounding in realism. It also helps that the visuals are so strong, with Ghibli’s trademark eye for detail, color and light bringing to life Japanese suburbs, Victorian alleys and magical kingdoms.

3. Cats Don’t Dance (1997)

Danny, a song-and-dance tomcat hoping to make it big in Golden Era Hollywood, steps on the shoes of Darla Dimple, “Hollywood’s Sweetheart,” when he improvise on his single line (“Meow”) while an extra in her star vehicle. He’s immediately blacklisted, framed in a studio disaster and rejected even by the other would-be sensations whose dreams have also been crushed by humanity’s lack of interest in animal stars. Though initially depressed, Danny contrives to stage a massive musical comeback that wallows gleefully in garish “final number” excess.

Warner Brother’s underappreciated gem was strangled in the cradle by executives who doubted its potential (much like in the plot), cutting off marketing funds and limiting the release. They managed to lock in a box office failure for themselves, which is sad given the film’s success as a self-aware throwback to classical feel-good backstage musicals and its polished “Who Framed Roger Rabbit” type wit. It walks the line drawn by Pixar, whereby the film appeals to kids with its bright colors, catchy tunes and non-stop action while amusing adults with razor-sharp studio-era references (Darla Dimple, a sadistically villainous Shirley Temple, is especially memorable). At least director Mark Dindal was able to go on and make Disney’s equally delightful anomaly “The Emperor’s New Groove.”

2. The Cat Who Walked By Herself (1988)

This obscure Russian film caught me by surprise. It’s an adaptation of a Rudyard Kipling pourquoi story (short origin tales that take the format “how the leopard got his spots” or the like). It’s narrated in silky whisper by a house cat to a toddler who’s pulled her tail. Apparently the child forgot that thousands of years ago, humans and cats came to an agreement not to do so. Mixing stop motion, cutouts and paintings, a primal fable about cavepeople’s evolution and dependence on animals unfolds, with the cat providing wry commentary.

Intricate constructions and an eclectic art design make this one of the most visually arresting cat films ever made, though few have even heard of it. It also manages to capture the personality of cats and the sense that they see themselves not as pets, but as masters of their domain (unlike dogs or horse, food and scratches behind the ears only buy temporary loyalty). Like in many of Kipling’s other writings, the atmosphere of unfathomable magic and exotic creatures foregrounds nature as an exciting power to be reckoned with and humanity as gruff interlopers in over their heads. The occasionally drab character designs and use of ritual repetition are notable flaws, but the craft, originality and wisdom behind the production won my admiration.

1. Felidae (1994)

Soon after arriving in a new apartment building with his owner, Francis begins to investigate a series of brutal sex murders in the neighborhood. His amateur sleuthing turns up a viscous gang, a deadly cult, a blind beauty, a brilliant technophile, a secret catacomb, feral femme fatales and evidence of an unethical research program carried out years ago that may hold the key behind it all. The closer he gets to the truth, the more bodies pile up around him, but the crafty killer is clearly playing a larger high-stakes game destined to force Francis into choosing between his mind and his morals. Felidae, by the way, is the scientific name for the family of cats.

The sinuous noir plot is the best on the list by far, with metaphoric implications that stretch from Nazi war crimes to modern scientific debates. Its dark tone, unsparing imagery and mature subject matter was a major risk for an animated film (Germany’s most expensive), but Akif Pirinçci source novel ensured an artistic pedigree high enough to pay off in its niche market. The animation is also stellar, aiming for realism (nailing cat mannerisms and their social hierarchy) to create real tension and intrigue. I’m not too sure about the title track by Boy George, but overall this is THE cat film to see.

Next week, top ten countdowns for animated dog and mice movies.

Poor Little Animated Shorts: Platinum Edition

This set of shorts includes, respectively, the top rated films according the animation industry, international critics and popular vote.


Title: What’s Opera, Doc (1957)
Director: Chuck Jones
Time: 7 minutes
Availability: On Looney Tunes Golden Collection Volume 2 DVD or online here.
Review:
An abbreviated version of Richard Wagner’s opera “The Ring of the Nibelung,” this short is purportedly the industry’s most highly regarded cartoon, topping the animator poll “The 50 Greatest Cartoons.” Elmer Fudd plays a Viking on the hunt for a rabbit (Bugs Bunny) who disguises himself as the Valkyrie Brunnhilda atop an obese equestrian to woo and eventually break Elmer Fudd’s heart, with tragic consequences. Jones admits to lavishing the project with far more time than usual, evident in the operatic visual extremes and the emphasis on pictorial humor and timing over wordplay and slapstick gags.

Along with “The Rabbit of Seville,” also by Chuck Jones/Warner Brothers, this is one of the great send-ups of opera, managing to earn both low brow and high brow appeal through its fun exaggerations and clever grasp of staging and music conventions. It remains one of the best known and most beloved cartoons of the golden era.

Title: Tale of Tales (1979)
Director: Yuriy Norshteyn
Time: 30 minutes
Availability: Masters of Russian Animation: Volume 3
Review:
“Tale of Tales” is a multi-layered allegory which touches upon national history, personal introspection and universal fairy tale tropes. Norshteyn, considered one of the greatest Soviet animators, structures the film as a series of interconnected memories which merge, recede, nest and shift in a fluid series of symbolic and nostalgic passages. At least three main stories are distinguishable: the tale of a childlike grey wolf in post-war USSR, a young artist at the beach with his fictitious creations and a festival on the eve before the WWII draft goes into affect. The art is a dreamlike collage of painted photographs, exquisitely detailed drawings and decorative landscapes peppered with cutouts creatures. Norshteyn demonstrates a brilliant sense of lighting, making scenes shimmer, glow and sink into shadow with expertise and instinct. His music is a similar collage of classical, tango and poetry.

Soviet censors freaked out when Norshteyn first submitted his work, worrying frantically that the film contained all sorts of social and political hidden messages. They were largely barking up the wrong tree, failing to understand (or perhaps understanding all too well) that the power of “Tale of Tales” came from its spellbinding humanist honesty and emotionally reflective tone. It has since grown to be regarded as one of the landmarks of short cinema and has been voted the greatest animated film of all time by international juries in 1984 and again in 2002. Other masterpieces by Norshsteyn include “The Hedgehog in the Fog” and “The Battle of Kerzhenets.”

Title: The Man Who Planted Trees (1987)
Director: Frederic Back
Time: 30 minutes
Availability: On DVD or online here.
Review:
Based on the popular story by Jean Giono, “The Man Who Planted Trees” is narrated by a traveler who happens upon a silent shepherd in desolate foothills of the Alps. When, as young man, he first meets the quiet, recluse, he is impressed by his stoic determination to carry out a self-proscribed task: to plant 100 acorns in the treeless valleys every day. The narrator revisits the site every few years, with absences during the first and second world wars to which the shepherd remains oblivious. After decades have passed, the entire region has become a lush “natural” forest which is declared a national park and celebrated by the local officials, tourists and immigrants who never know about the man who steadfastly planted trees. The art style has a water-colored warmth to it that flows like wind and water and fits well with the environmental themes and good-natured optimism. Originally made in French, Christopher Plummer provides the English narration.

“The Man Who Planted Trees” has long reigned atop the IMDB shorts list and quite deservingly so. The green, humanist themes occasionally border on melodramatic, but the sweeping allegorical charm is quite genuine and moving while the deft skill at story-telling is so realistic that for years many believed it to be a true story. A beautiful film, it should be required viewing (or reading) for all ages.

Iceberg Arena: Soviet Sci-fi Showdown

The Cold War produced some of the best science-fiction ever made, delightfully wallowing in paranoia, technological innovation and wild speculation on how rival ideologies might lead to paradise or dystopia. There is so much room to wax analytic about the way culture and politics trickled into American science fiction cinema, but that’s not today’s focus. This Iceberg Arena comes from the other side of the iron curtain, and compares three cult classics of soviet sci-fi: “Aelita: Queen of Mars,” “Solaris” and “Kin-Dza-Dza.”

Aelita: Queen of Mars (1924)

This silent sci-fi epic, often labeled the first feature-length treatment of space exploration, preceded Fritz Lang’s “Metropolis” (1927) by three years, but remains relatively hidden by the latter film’s shadow. The movie follows Los, a scientist who builds a rocket and flies to Mars. Meanwhile, Aelita has already fallen in love with him via telescope voyeurism (pioneering the classic device of 80’s teen comedies) and the two conspire to lead a worker’s revolution on Mars. However, Aelita *cough*Lenin*cough* betrays her collaborators and makes a bid for dictatorship.

“Aelita” doesn’t particularly stand up modern science or contemporary cinema, but one can still squeeze plenty of entertainment value from the celluloid. The overt propaganda and earnest pseudo-science make the film funny enough to serve as B-movie kitsch. The constructivist sets are impractical art deco indulgences filled with swooping curves and oblique angles and only barely upstaged by the insanely inspired costumes (check out Aelita’s “crown” in the poster art above for the tiniest taste). The sweeping scope, high budget and imaginative vision even make the second half of the film passable as vintage adventure fodder.

The film was a popular success in its day. Director Yakov Protazanov enjoyed the type of mass appeal never really achieved by the more intellectually rigorous Eisenstein and Pudovkin, though history has since reversed their fame. Today, it has a nostalgia value that will endear it to fans of “Flash Gordon,” but it lacks the weight and nuance to stave off obsolescence.

Oh, and like all Soviet films, it is too slow and too long.

Solaris (1975)

Andrei Tarkovsky adapted Stanislaw Lem’s celebrated novel into one of his best known and highest regarded films. It features Kris Kelvin, a psychologists assigned to evaluate the situation on a space-station orbiting the liquid planet Solaris. He finds the spaceport to be in a state of growing disrepair, with the skeleton crew acting reclusive and evasive. Kris soon learns the reason when he wakes up next to his wife, a woman who committed suicide nearly a decade earlier. More than an apparition, the creature appears to be some misguided attempt by the planet to communicate with his mind. Kris struggles feebly to come to grips with a new reality for which humanity is utterly unprepared.

Tarkovsky’s film was one of the first to link the unfathomable mysteries of space with those in the human mind. His film slow-brews a cerebral concoction of emotional intimacy and identity with the frightening potentials of science and technology. The film is equally fascinating rather the viewer is trying to read Kris’s inscrutable face or attempting to unravel the mystery of Solaris’s abstract sentience. Few films before or since have so devastatingly tapped into our fear of the unknown.

However, like all Soviet films, it is too slow and too long (even compared to the other films in this Iceberg Arena). The extended prologue and the ending twist are both muddled meditations that stretch out intolerably. Fans of the director’s work should have very little problem, since his pacing is no slower than usual, but newcomers should consider themselves warned. In many ways, Soderbergh’s underrated remake is a more cohesive, balanced and digestible work. Personally, I prefer Tarkovsky’s other cult sci-fi film, “Stalker” (1975), but I chose not to include it in this contest because it would have made the competition unfair.

Kin-Dza-Dza (1986)

“Kin-Dza-Dza” is a cult film that mixes absurdist and satiric comedy with harsh-environment themed science-fiction. A construction foreman (Vladimir) is on his way to buy noodles for dinner when he is stopped by a college student (Gedevan) who is seeking help for a raving hobo. The tramp claims to be an interstellar traveler trying to use a small piece of junk to teleport to his homeworld. While condescendingly playing along, the two terrestrials find themselves transported to the desert wasteland planet of Pluk.

Playing like a Soviet “Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy” (closer to the low-fi charm of the book, not the glossy movie), the film has fun jerking its fish-out-of-water protagonists through a series of weird adventures. Much of the humor comes from the oddly-conceived alien society found on Pluk: the indigenous race of mercenary telepaths has a ridiculously strict class structure and, fortunately for the humans, a currency based around matchsticks. They have about a dozen native words (including one for nose-bells), but their language mostly consists of “koo” which tends to serve all purposes.

The unique sense of oddball humor is probably more interesting for most viewers than the actual genre trappings and will make or break the experience. Director Georgi Daneliya borrows somewhat haphazardly from any sci-fi concept that crosses his mind and creates a messy, low-continuity plot that moves in unpredictable bursts, but manages to maintain a consistent voice and goofy appeal.

The film has never been released in the US and there are no plans to do so, perhaps because the film, like all Soviet films, it is too slow and too long. A very decent fansub can be found on Google video here.

Winner: Solaris

“Solaris,” along with its American equivalent, “2001: A Space Odyssey,” are cerebral exercises that exceed their literary antecedents, defying the maxim that “the book is always better.” “2001” makes a decent litmus test for whether you will like the Soviet classic and should give you a sense of its art-house tone.

Ponderous intellectual and emotional studies are, I reluctantly acknowledge, not for all tastes. If you tend to like your science-fiction distilled into unpretentious old-school adventures, go with “Aelita.” If you’re the type who’d have more fun mocking “Dune” than analyzing its literary and scientific qualities, than try out “Kin-Dza-Dza.”

Vampire Week Part 3

Rank: 25
Title: Black Sunday (The Mask of Satan)
Director: Mario Bava
Country: Italy
Year: 1960
Review:
When I was first compiling the candidates for my vampire countdown, Mario Bava was the only director who I was sure would make the list twice. “Black Sunday” (1960) (also known as “The Mask of Satan” and a plethora of other titles), Italy’s answer to “Dracula,” is the better known of the two, although it isn’t quite as fun as my other pick.

The film begins in the 17th century, where Asa Vajda and her sorcerer lover are put to death for witchcraft. The first shot is of fire, but Asa isn’t lucky enough to be merely burnt alive. Instead she is branded with a searing iron and then has a mask with inward-pointing spikes nailed into her face. The terrifying scene famously intercuts between Asa’s reaction and a first-person view of the mask heading towards the camera lens. It is interesting that while the film has many scares to come (perpetrated by the vampires), none are quite as brutal as this first act committed against them.

A sudden downpour prevents her body from being burnt into oblivion, and so instead she is buried in the crypt of her ancestors. Centuries later she is accidentally discovered by a pair of traveling doctors (Kruvajan and Gorobec). They can see her face through the glass cover and break it to retrieve a trinket. When a bat startles the men, Kruvajan cuts his hand on the glass and the blood trickles onto the lips of Asa’s corpse, slowly setting about the process that will revive her (the scene is echoed in many vampire films to follow, such as “Underworld”).

Using witchcraft, sorcery, telepathy, hypnotism and plain old-fashion deception, Asa regains control of her castle, revives her unholy groom and begins murdering all those who stand in her way. Complicating things further is Gorobec’s budding romance with kindly local girl Katia (played by Barbara Steele, who also plays Asa). Asa plans to drain Katia’s blood to gain eternal life, and she has some pretty dastardly tricks up her sleeve to accomplish her plan.

Bava assembled some of the finest B/W sets since the heyday of classic 1930’s horror, and though it makes his images seem a couple decades out of date, it does brilliantly revive the haunted, labyrinthine castles and cobweb-strewn crypts of yesteryear with loving care and craftsmanship. Barbara Steele’s enormous deer eyes and thick black mane allow her to alternate between demonic animalism and innocent beauty in her dual roles. The rest of the cast is less memorable, but also not as bad as your typical Italian horror production. Bava pulls out all the stops for his exciting climax, a structural emphasis that can be seen in the ending twists and signature shocks of his later gialli.

Rank: 24
Title: Dracula (Horror of Dracula)
Director: Terence Fisher

Country: UK

Year: 1958
Review:
Terence Fisher’s “Horror of Dracula” (1958) remains one of Hammer Horror’s best works and it continues to be well-received be genre enthusiasts today (something which can’t be said for most of Hammer’s canon). Though based on the Bram Stoker novel, it makes bold and interesting departures that result in a movie that still feels fresh and able to surprise – even to those over-familiar with the story.

It starts with the arrival of Jonathan Harker at Dracula’s lair. This version has Harker as a mild-mannered librarian, and when Dracula heads out to fetch some books for him, a desperate woman appears and begs for rescue. Harker reacts with confusion, but it is later revealed that he is actually undercover and intends to kill the evil count that night. His plans are shattered when the damsel in distress turns out to be an undercover vampire (such intrigue!), and though he succeeds in staking her, Dracula is alerted by her screams and subjugates Harker, turning him into a minion of darkness!

The plot switches over to Harker’s fiancée Lucy, her brother Arthur, his wife Mina and Van Helsing, who is initially not welcomed by the distraught skeptics. Helsing eventually convinces them to help him, although not until after Lucy has been killed, revived and staked. They begin a frantic search for Dracula’s coffin, but an unexpected person beats them to it and they fail. Soon Mina is acting strangely (for example, receiving scars from crucifixes that touch her skin), tipping off the men-folk that Dracula has already chosen his next victim. That night they guard all the entrances, but Dracula still gets to Mina’s bedside. After all the twists have been pulled, it’s time for a fairly lack-luster showdown redeemed by an enthusiastic death sequence.

Low production values and unexceptional directing don’t do too much damage to this film, which is probably best remembered for the winning pairing of Peter Cushing (as Van Helsing) and Christopher Lee (as Dracula). The two help raise the acting out of the poor house, although their subsequent pictures were not always as successful; Hammer disgorged at least four lamentable sequels in an attempt to milk this one for all it was worth. Their female costars are not given as juicy of roles, but this adaptation became notorious for the then-scandalous sexuality of Dracula’s bond with Lucy and Mina. Dracula’s nightly visits are greeted with frank lust by the woman and his erotic appeal contrasts interestingly with Jonathan as a reserved librarian and Arthur as a prim husband.

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The script is a welcome reworking with sprinkles of plot twists and British humor. However, make sure to keep expectations low if you are unfamiliar with the output of Hammer Studio. If you do find yourself enjoying this film, check out Fisher’s next best film, “The Devil Rides Out” about a satanic cult.

Rank: 23
Title: Night Watch
Director: Timur Bekmambetov

Country: Russia

Year: 2004
Review:
“Night Watch” (2004), based on the books by Sergey LuKjianenko, launched Russia’s most successful movie franchise (it outsells “Lord of the Rings” in its home country) and gave audiences an interesting new take on the old vampire legend. In this revisionist tale, the world is balanced between the forces of light and darkness (OK, nothing new there) and supernaturally gifted prodigies from either sides take shifts guarding the 12 hour periods intrinsic to their rivals. Hence the Day Watch patrols the daytime activities of the good guys while the Night Watch keeps the vampires at bay.

Anton Gorodetsky is an unassuming citizen of a bleak, black-rimmed Moscow when he starts to catch glimpses of the future, not to mention impossible agents invisible to everyone else. He is soon identified as an “Other” who is destined to use his special powers for either the light or dark alliances. Several years after he makes his decision, Anton comes across Egor (a boy who may tip the balance and trigger a final war) and Svetlana (a young woman with a cursed vortex spinning above her head). It’s clear that the century long truce is about to fall apart, and Anton is at the center of it all.

Timur Bekmambetov’s blockbuster production has a little trouble finding its identity. The grimy, lived-in Moscow locations are great, with a busy mise-en-scene that shows hard-work and attention to detail. Unfortunately the CG is occasionally weak and far too overdone. It has the visual bluster of a slick Hollywood knockoff that is willing to let poor acting and dialogue slip, so long as the effects seem impressive. It is certainly a bit of a shame because the central story is quite interesting and hints at an off-screen universe replete with a history, mythology and sociology of epic scope and grave import. The acting could use a boost with Konstantin Khabensky’s Anton managing his working-class average-Joe side but choking on the serious and emotional segments.

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The film has two sequels, “Day Watch” (2007) and a TBA finale. Reports are that “Day Watch” is superior even to the first part of the trilogy, but I haven’t seen it yet.

Rank: 22
Title: Planet of the Vampires
Director: Mario Bava

Country: Italy

Year: 1965
Review:
Few attempts at combining vampire horror and science-fiction have worked, but Mario Bava’s “Planet of the Vampires” might be my favorite for the sheer camp pleasure that results from trying. This Italian feature has a smattering of psychedelic 60’s charm, eerie atmospheric horror and pulp-comic space opera all rolled into one.

The starship Argos picks up a distress signal from an unexplored planet. They are able to approach, thanks to their meteor deflection device, but are assailed by a telepathic bloodlust and only barely manage to pull themselves back from a self-destructive orgy. Their sister ship, the Galliott, is not so lucky and ends up crashing on the surface. The Argos crew lands and starts to search the hostile surface, a bleak landscape of barren rock, curling fog and deadly magma. Patches of vividly colored light (in Bava’s greens, pinks and purples) streak through the darkness.

An expedition to the Galliot discovers that all of the crew is either missing or dead. Strangely, the corpses look less like crash fatalities and more like homocides. The bodies are buried, but they don’t stay stiff for long – soon the Argos is being terrorized by their own undead (which look and act more like zombies than vampires, but oh well.). A few screaming beauties and ray-gun battles later, a desperate escape attempt is mounted, but it only leads to the laughably “terrifying” twist ending.

Bava flutters his trademark eye for visual flamboyance, seemingly unaware that he has almost no budget and a cast of untalented hacks. In fact, the international medley of actors was unable to communicate with each other or the director. Bava just let them speak whatever language they were comfortable with (legend has it that some scenes originally have four different languages being mumbled) and then [poorly] dubbed over them later. The props are a couple of sorry scraps left over from other films, and set designer Giorgio Giovannini was forced to use mirrors, multiple-exposures, creative relighting and varied camera angles to give the impression of a large landscape. When it works, it works, and when it doesn’t, it’s certainly quite amusing.

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Though campy, “Planet of the Vampires” is often credited with helping inspire many serious sci-fi horror outings. The synthetic black uniforms, for instance, with their yellow trim and lightning bolt insignias would influence costume design for decades to come. One of the most famous sequences, where crewmembers from the Argos find the derelict debris and skeletal frames of a giant doomed forbearer (long ago killed by the same power that has trapped them), is cited as an influence on the H. R. Giger set designs in “Alien.”

Rank: 21
Title: Rabid
Director: David Cronenberg

Country: Canada

Year: 1977
Review:
Cronenberg’s low-budget second feature is a vampire-themed voyage into body-horror that is not for the squeamish. Rose (porn star Marilyn Chambers) is the victim of a ugly motorcycle crash in the quiet countryside. As she lies in critical condition at an experimental plastic surgery lab, a pair of doctors make the ethically dubious decision to try out their latest method in a bid to save her. Their grafts of highly adaptive tissue are miraculously successful, but have unpleasant Cronenberg-esque side-effects, like an evil orifice that opens in her armpit and a phallic stinger that emerges to suck blood.

Rose, now an unwitting abomination, breaks free to feed on the populace, which spreads a rage-inducing bloodlust disease that soon threatens all humanity. Securing any possible chance of survival requires locating the haywire patient amidst the nightmare of bloodthirsty zombies (similar in nature to “28 Days Later”).

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This grim, gore-soaked shocker is not as well written, shot or directed as other Cronenberg films (even his earlier “Shivers” is better), but it’s hard to care when the point is the grisly mayhem and unashamed violence luxuriously poured before the spectator’s eye. Rarely (outside the 70’s indie circuit) do even horror films ever get so unremittingly pessimistic. The cinematography is dirty and grainy, but packs the immediacy of a news camera capturing a bloody riot. The story is rather simple, short and nasty, but suffices to set up one terrifying scene after another. There is just enough sympathy earned by the monster and her string of male morsels for the audience to care, and a handful of unsubtle commentaries on sexual and social behaviors to make you think – if you want to.