The seven year itch

Are Mexicans so lusty because the climate down there is so hot? Do Catholics have a thing for forbidden fruit? One thing that’s for sure is part of being macho is cruising a sidepiece.

     Also, when it comes to what Mexicans think is funny, I can’t overemphasize how much mileage you can get from making fun of other people’s misfortune, flaws, and personal appearance. It’s different for Mexicans. I don’t think it’s seen as mean spirited as it is to wokesters.

 

Subida al cielo (1952, Luis Buñuel) drips with all the hothouse eroticism its tropical climate and surrealist imagery can evoke. The Eve in this garden is Lilia Prado, as RAQUEL. And if you’ve ever heard one of those gender inequality discussions where someone suggests that what were to happen if genders were switched between two people or characters in question would be either unacceptable or acceptable—the opposite of the source the comparison was based on—you’ll have an idea of how Raquel can stand as ideal of a male unabashedly racking up a list of all the women he’s bedded. You know, like what it means to one who plays the field—a sportfuck.

     In other words think of it sounding something like: why is she perceived as a slut for making sexual advances to OLIVERIO and ELADIO but if a guy did it he’d be seen as virile, or at the very least free of condemnation. (Also it bothers me how in that early scene when Raquel is trying to get Oliverio’s attention and he flees from her the other men in the saloon cackle like a pack of hyenas.) But the magnificence of the plot of Subida al cielo is how well it playfully subverts genre conventions—so much so as to be to the point of feigning innocence.

     Raquel wants to get laid. When she wants. With whom she wants. Forget all that crap about Oliverio’s terminally ill mom having her kids chiseling away at their inheritance on her deathbed; that’s boring and inessential. Although it feels like in a way this movie has to concede to deceptively be about Oliverio. Even better. It’s like because he’s a guy who just got married and is trying to do what’s right by the estate of his mother he’s noble or something.

The twist ending is a stunner. In a way it’s such a subtle twist I’d never noticed it before. But, that scene where Oliverio has that vision of Raquel eating of the apple and she says “I got what I wanted,” it’s as if she ate the forbidden fruit of the garden but irl gets away clean. And as if that weren’t thrillingly mischievous enough, Oliverio doesn’t suffer any punishment either—aside from him feeling swindled of his faithfulness to his newlywed bride.

     Buñuel’s cinematic artistry is on full display, with say, starting with the intoxicating eroticism of Raquel hiking her wet skirt up as she exits the bus to wade in the shallow river and going for a dip in her swimsuit. And then foremost a whole giant chunk of the movie gives way to a full on surrealist dream sequence. What is essentially a sex fantasy Oli has about Raquel becomes charged with a moral gravitas as his desperate struggle against the will of his libido to submit to his faithful wife turns on him, revealing her face to now be that of Raquel as well. But visually, so much to appreciate. The tropical jungle in the bus! Eating his mother's knitting! What are those sheep doing there running around while Raquel and Oli are having sex? Oh, Don Luis. What a master.

El infierno

Mexican society is male dominated. And among these men, the most highly esteemed values are being macho, having money, and protecting their women and children. The lowest values are being a coward, and poverty. Does this sound so outdated?

 

La hija del engaño (1951, Luis Buñuel) is a throwaway commercial assignment with very little to offer cinematically. It relies too heavily on its plot about the inevitable reconciliation between a father and the daughter he abandoned when she was an infant.

     But it still packs a wallop of a caricature of hombres sinvergüenzas. While La hija del engaño is a broad comedy that suffers from too often indulging uninspired instances of hamming it up, it nevertheless includes domestic abuse toward spouse and child from a belligerent alcoholic guardian, and a fair amount of gun violence. 

     Two scenes had me hollering with boisterous laughter. The first takes place in DON QUINTÍN’S casino, when a short fat Mexican gambler named EL JONRÓN repeatedly threatens the staff that if they don’t cater to his beck and whim he’ll give them a “homerun” (his slang for firing his pistol?!). The gunman is confronted by the bouncer, another short fat Mexican. This conflict escalates into a duel of monosyllabic grunts that is the most effectively perfect epitome of idiot Mexicans desperately trying to prove their masculinity in public through violence I’ve probably ever seen; guns drawn, they yell at each other like children daring each other to shoot first, because each of them know the one to shoot first will be the one to face criminal punishment from the law. 

     And operating on a similar code of conduct, the scene later when Don Quintín and his men throw food at MARTHA and PACO’S table slays just as hard. For me what is so effective about this olive throwing business is how effectively I felt the humiliation and its rising tension. There were higher stakes between these two tables and some breadcrumbs than I’ve encountered in some of the hugest Hollywood action sequences.

Le Journal d'une femme de chambre

Before you let misogynist be the first thing that pops into your head, don’t be in such haste as to judge the old-fashioned Catholic value system upheld by Mexicans without attempting to at least appreciate it as just being different, and hopefully maybe even admit that their sexual politics and hierarchies mirror how life really is. Ongoing my further investigation into Buñuel’s films he made while in Mexico, I find even more cogent proof of how compelling it is to get to watch movies with the kinds of characterizations of aspects of the cultural identity of Mexicans that I’d always known from first-hand experience but never so adequately found depicted in cinema.

     This time it’s spiteful, vindictive, vengeful personal attacks aimed at someone with loose morals. Sure, throughout history there’ve been tons of examples of religious persecution, but with Mexicans it’s so vivacious, so gleefully mean-spirited it’s fun. Our closest counterpart to what I’m describing is John Waters. 

 

Susana (1951, Luis Buñuel) has as its titular heroine a conniving, wantonly manipulative, 20 yr old sexpot sociopath who's morally rotten; yet soo cute, perky, and fun as to bring a defiant radiance to any scene she’s in. Take that Hayes Code. 

     She’s actually hot too. I love this actress. That she’s also blond is an especially nice touch. The opening of the movie sets her up as being incarcerated in the state reformatory, for what we can only presume is being slutty. She gets thrown into solitary (one can only imagine what she did to elicit that punishment) and prays to God, and the god of prisons, that she be set free—and instantly she’s able to rip the barred window from her prison cave.

     Okay as I write this I realize this could sound like cheesy bad sexploitation but Buñuel eschews any semblance of shabby sleaze by polishing this melodrama with prestige. One of my favorite images from any Buñuel movie is the iconic shot when Susana escapes and the pious family sit for supper as she appears outside their window drenched by a rainstorm. And here it is when the old crone hardcore Catholic head servant FELISA warns that this apparition is a devil.

     Yeah sure Susana seduces all the men, causing them to sacrifice everything they are because they're enamored with her. But that’s not anywhere near as interesting as the battle between the women of the household and Susana. It gets so ugly. The rancor with which Susana exclaims that the men will take her over them because she’s young! I don’t see this film as misogynist. And I don’t see Susana as evil. I just think she’s empowered, and resorting to what she has to in order to survive, and fuck it.

     And lastly, did anyone else notice the scene with ALBERTO and the dragonfly he’s studying? This might be I wanna say one of the earliest appearances of etymology in a Buñuel film, which will of course be a recurring motif throughout the rest of his work on into France in the 60s and is one of his lasting trademarks. (Listen, I know there was already that Silence of the Lambs moth in Un chien andalou alright.)

Human garbage

What can sometimes happen with Mexicans or the poor is that any outward show of decency or respect for your neighbor sheds in favor of a more useful way of adapting to your environment—treating everyone like shit. Self-preservation is innate. And so is baring your teeth when faced with threats from other animals in a hostile environment. 

 

Los olvidados (1950, Luis Buñuel) centers on three boys, none of whom have fathers. PEDRO begs for his mother’s affection, attention, and acceptance. But she hates him because she got pregnant with him after being raped by a stranger. And the force of this figure and what it represents has now shown itself to be more oppressing than I’d ever picked up on before. For even in this community of social outcasts, there exists the stranger. This unknown assailant is the double of another of these three boys: JAIBO.

     Jaibo never knew his mother or father. Is Los olvidados an indictment of society or the responsibilities of parents in the home? Both, probably. Jaibo is a sociopath. A predator. A career criminal. (I’ve always loved his intro where he orders that chorizo torta from a street vendor, spots the heat and bolts, providing the exposition that he’s on the run from just breaking out of juvie.) But he’s also got swagger. He boasts the confidence and roguish sense of adventure that attracts so many misguided youths to the street in the first place. And Buñuel’s ability to evoke this specific type of Mexican masculinity is keen. Because as depressing and bleak as this movie is, don’t forget it’s also fun and often hilarious. (How can this movie even make that scene with Pedro and the pedo come across as a comedic skit?)

     Yet lest we forget, Jaibo is a harbinger of the erosion of morality in this community of impoverished peasants. And Pedro must choose whether he’s to follow this path or preserve what good is still left in himself. So far I’ve mentioned Pedro, who must choose between doing what’s right or wrong; and Jaibo, who represents the pursuit of vice. All that leaves is the boy who embodies pure virtue: OJITOS.

     Ojitos has only recently been abandoned by his father (so recent that he still waits in vain in the mercado for him to return). We never hear anything about his mother. And maybe all we’ll ever know about him is that his sense of decency is indomitable. Also, I’m not going to spell anything out, but I see a definite significance in how when Pedro first meets Ojitos he refers to him as a fuereño, which can be translated as stranger or outsider; and when he addresses him as such, Ojitos replies in the negative—not recognizing or identifying with that label.

 

If I liken the three boys to stray dogs, then in contrast to their transient nature are the domestic residents. Specifically, Pedro’s mother, the waif ragamuffin MECHE and her family, and the blind busker DON CARMELO. And it’s with this other half of the ensemble from which Los olvidados gets its full effectiveness. Or how its milieu coalesces into such a relatable narrative.

     It goes without saying that Buñuel illuminates all of the players here with their own individually unique humanity. Like the unexpected flourish when we cringe at Jaibo’s advances toward Meche, cornering her, desperate for a kiss, only for her to acquiesce and demand “show me the two pesos.” And while the tone of the film is abrasively cynical, it’s got no problem sprinkling in a little sentimentality—Ojitos and Meche with that tooth he swiped from a corpse is adorable.

     And no talk of Buñuel would be complete without mentioning his surrealist cinematic stylings. Sure, the dream sequence; easy. But the mangy dog apparition affords us the grace with which to glimpse something like empathy with even Jaibo's sorry ass. Such is the poetry of surrealism. And what a perfect fit that style is with rural Mexican folklore and superstition. The imagery of magic and animal. Ojitos sucking from the cow’s teet. And on top of all of that, how often does the subject matter, the slayings, feel wrought out of the Old Testament? Or the gospels: Don Carmelo cleansing Meche’s mom with the paloma as symbol of the Holy Spirit.

Thoughts on Books I Finished, May 2023

Bad Actors, Mick Herron 

The library finally came through with a copy of this, the most recent entry to date of my favorite COVID-era series obsession (Slough House / Slow Horses, running ahead of Dalgliesh, even a bit ahead of Muderbot), and it was, entirely predictably, entirely satisfying. I like almost everything about these books, especially Herron’s unmatched ability to balance consistency and change in his recurring characters, and I liked this one a lot.  

 

Dolphin Junction, Mick Herron 

Evidently, I’m in a Mick Herron completist phase. If you have a line on his early poetry career output, drop a line. This was a fun, illuminating set of short stories. Herron’s way with a fun twist reveal is, and this is a compliment, Twilight Zone level, and nobody plays with hiding info in a way you can only do on the page better. Super fun read. 

 

This Is What Happened, Mick Herron 

Classic non–Slough-House Herron: great twists, grim, probably glad to be described as “a nasty little piece of work”. Without spoilers, this is a dark look at three people, one of whom is a very bad person, and all three people are well observed: eacy variously upsetting, infuriating, and sad. Herron’s humor is tamped way down here, but he rremains the unchallenged depictor of people’s exasperated responses, and his narratorial sardonic encapsulations of society’s failings have a kind of … charm. (The difference between urban anonymity for poor people and rich people hit me particularly hard.) 

 

Black Ball, Theresa Runstedler
This wonderful work of history offers both a detailed account of the labor history that influenced the NBA throughout the 70s, with particular reference to the way that history played into the NBA / ABA competition (and then the NBA / ABA merger), and a series of case studies, including Spencer Haywood (once married to Iman!), Kareem Abdul-Jabbar (once considered violent and inarticulate!?), and others, which illustrate and illuminate the living workers who made that history. If you think the “modern NBA” started with Larry Bird and Magic Johnson “saving” the league from drugs and bad marketing, you owe it to yourself to read this.

Thoughts on Books I Finished, April 2023

Shroud for a Nightengale, PD James: Three or four books into this series about poet/detective Adam Dalgliesh, I find myself unable to detect whether I really like them. I enjoy the prose, and I do find the books compelling, but the pervasive loathing of humanity, particularly the feminine portions thereof, is starting to overwhelm the pleasure on offer. This one starts with a phenomenal couple chapters—more or less James on lesbians and an enormously zesty, upsetting scene of murder—and ends with a solution to the mystery that I'm absolutely not sure makes any sense. If you're in the mood for a book about a large group of women who hate each other and are mostly hated by a couple detectives, very skilfully depicted, you could do a lot worse.

Further reading: Joyce Carol Oates; Hilary Mantel.

40 Watts from Nowhere, Sue Carpenter: Recommended the other week—and, as it turns out, blurbed—by Mike Watt, this is an entertaining and well-structured story about someone who decides to start a pirate radio station, does, runs it for a couple years, and then gets shut down, all in a mid/late-90s milieu of fading, but still present, 80s corporate consolidation with enough money sloshing around to slop over the edges of the bucket and irrigate the underground, and low enough rents to live somewhere cool and do cool stuff while working just enough to finance it all. So for all of that it's a fine fun read. For anything else—insight as to the why of anything, especially the why of any of the author's actions at any given time—you'll have to look for another book.

Don't All Thank Me at Once: The Lost Pop Genius of Scott Miller, Brett Milano: When I was a kid and mostly mainly into AC/DC but with growing frontiers into the Ramones and Slade and Hüsker Dü and the Meat Puppets and Screaming Trees and guitar heroes everywhere (and Slayer and fIREHOSE and Minutement and Voivod and Black Sabbath) I picked up Game Theory's (power-pop, with a lot of experimental moments) album Lolita Nation on cassette. I must have seen a review somewhere. I do have a memory of reading a long fantasia on the album, mostly about its references to the Beach Boys and "Sloop John B", in a zine I picked up in Kansas City, but, like trying to figure out what those "uh uh I feel funny a bit" chants are on the Blatz/Filth split, the Internet is useless. I loved the tape, and listened to it all the time. I tried to pick up other Game Theory albums over the following years, but they never hit me the same way. When Scott Miller died suddenly a few years back, his family dumped a bunch of his out-of-print music on the Internet so people could hear it again, and, even without my cassette, I found I still loved Lolita Nation.

This book reveals on the first page that Miller died by his own hand, and that loss doesn't loom over everything in the book, but it never quite leaves the stage, either. Brett Milano doesn't offer any answers, and neither do Miller's interviewed bandmates, much. This leaves Lolita Nation as the Rosetta Stone for my understanding of Miller, particularly this bit from "Exactly What We Don't Want to Hear" which Milano (64-5) glosses as "about two groups of misfits: record collectors, and obscure artists whose records are collected ... Both ... are on something of a hopeless quest." To my ear, though, the lack of hope in there is more important than Milano lets it be:
It's been a decade of trade-offs
Of try myself or let others try
What sort of win is there waiting
For prima donnas like me to find
Standing all night in line?


It's been a decade of record stores
Hordes of failing new wave careers
What lengths we're going to just to find
Exactly what we don't want to hear
With all our well-trained ears


It's been a decade of lives I've left
Twenty months behind when I've gone
If I've been missing expect the worst
That I won't be gone long

Miller's own "failed new wave career" remains one of the 80s' less fair judgments, to me. This book hopes to reclaim Miller and rescue his musical "genius" from obscurity. I read it in a sitting. When I pulled up my music streaming service of choice to listen to Lolita Nation while I read, it told me Game Theory has 92 listeners per month.

Luxury Horror

Luxury is scary. What better object displays vulgar wealth than an infinity pool?

Infinity Pool (2023, Brandon Cronenberg) is a tedious, shallow, barrage of redundant horror cliches that looks stylish—although is it? Like the macro photography dialogue scenes. Are extreme close-ups of an eye or a mouth back and forth while 2 people talk really that innovative, or is there even a reason?
     Does this movie sound awful? It’s rubbish. And that’s when it gets good. Infinity Pool is a psychological horror film that satirizes dilettantes. The whole thing amounts to some cynical irony like an upscale art gallery full of rich people attending an exhibition with no art to be found. 
     The story really begins when the character Alexander Skarsgård plays and the one played by Mia Goth meet. He, a writer and she, an actress, both identify themselves as working in creative professions, despite both being devoid of any discernable talent. And that’s why most of the time this movie feels obnoxious and like it lacks any sense of artistry that would give it merit. Unless you realize that’s the point.
     Because the Skarsgård character deliberately sought after being a part of this group (and that disavows him of being entirely coerced into it), this moral structure whereby the story elements having to do with the doubling device as a means to confronting his true self (his worst traits) subsequently leads finally to allowing us to have sympathy for him. And the veracity of this is what makes it haunting.
 

1/26/2023 AMC Phipps Plaza 14

Atlanta, GA

DCP

2022 Year End List of Favorite Movies Seen in Theater

                

1.  Blonde (2022, Andrew Dominik)

2.  Decision to Leave (2022, Park Chan-wook)

3.  Halloween Ends (2022, David Gordon Green)

4.  Lux Æterna (2019, Gaspar Noé)

5.  We’re All Going to the World’s Fair (2021, Jane Schoenbrun)

6.  Vortex (2021, Gaspar Noé)

7.  Memoria (2021, Apichatpong Weerasethakul)

8.  Smile (2022, Parker Finn)

9.  Bullet Train (2022, David Leitch)

10. Crimes of the Future (2022, David Cronenberg)

Chainletter Horror

People who make movies know that audiences respond well to devices that help structure the narrative. One very common example is the ticking clock. The protagonist has x amount of time to accomplish y or else z. It helps to clearly define the stakes for the audience. My favorite horror movie, The Ring (2002, Gore Verbinski), is a great example of this. You watch a video then get a phonecall and 7 days later you die. We all know that those 7 days will elapse in the time it takes to get to the end of the movie.
     But The Ring adds something else. If you show the video to someone else, you’re off the hook. So simple. Such an effective genre contraption. It’s fun to weigh the morality behind would you rather die, or live but someone else has to die in your place. But it only works in movies when it’s established through a curse. It’s the whole reason It Follows (2014, David Robert Mitchell) works.

Smile (2022, Parker Finn) is a psychological chainletter horror movie about a doctor who treats patients with mental illness. And the whole reason I love this movie is because it cohesively builds its world entirely around ROSE being labeled crazy yet knowing she's not.    

     You see the smile and then you die. Paramount put this movie out. And it had a big ad campaign. When I first saw the teasers in theaters I thought it looked so stupid. But sometimes I get this compulsion to try something I told myself there’s no way I would like. Also I don’t judge a movie by its ads. For example, there’s no way I’m going to watch Amsterdam (2022, David O. Russell), despite its trailers with its amazing cast and the propulsion it derives from a catchy song. “Helplessly Hoping” from 1969 by Crosby, Stills, and Nash (I looked it up). I don’t like David O. Russell’s work though.
     What’s great about Smile is that the victims we hear about from the smile curse don’t have any link to mental illness. It’s Rose. Rose has it in her family. Rose has based her career on it. And the inciting incident sets Rose up in a position where now everyone wonders if she could be crazy. Without even being a horror movie, that’s a pretty great dramatic premise. And what makes this angle even more effective for me is that even though the cultural climate is being progressively shaped to be more inclusive and protective, there will always be those considered “other.”
     The “other” is scary. It’s the people society has deemed unfit. Like a witchhunt. I root for these protagonists above all. The one scene that won me over has to be at the point Rose’s driven to the edge and everyone is against her and we see her scarfing a cheeseburger in her car all by herself. (Okay, in the movie they don’t say it’s a cheeseburger. It could be a veggie burger or a beyond burger or whatever. I’m taking liberties here.) But it’s the way she goes at it: with complete abandon. So this is just me I’m guessing but I took it as her tired of being stifled by conformity and taking a break to do what she wants for a change. 
 
Mental illness is no joke. I get that. But I love the performance this actress (Sosie Bacon) gives as Rose. There was a moment where I could have sworn I saw her eye twitch that I thought was brilliant. I can’t recall ever having seen a movie where the main character isn’t just mistaken for being crazy in a worst paranoid fear actually come true way, but actually transforming into someone who is. Or is she? I don’t want to spoil it. Anyway, the thing about chainletter horror is how to end it. And horror is one of the genres endings matter more than most. And again not to give anything away, but I love the way Smile ends.
 
9/27/2022 AMC Phipps Plaza 14
Atlanta, GA
DCP

NC-17 and so harrowing you'll need a stomach pump but wow is it pretty

Blonde (2022, Andrew Dominik) is an expressionistic Hollywood Melodrama that luridly indulges in showing the ugliest nightmares of abuse and trauma as experienced by the most beautiful dream star persona the screen has ever known. And visually its style looks like it could be from the 1950s, except for the fact that it’s also one of the few movies nowadays that doesn’t look exactly like every other movie.

     Blonde doesn’t hold back. Because it’s set in the ‘50s, its central protagonist has the benefit of being from an era before the internet, social media, and camera phones had come along and began to scrutinize, capture, and transmit every aspect of the lives of high-profile public figures. The star persona in this movie remains a legend—a legend that’s preserved because the public was never able to know the real person. And like the best forms of expressionist art, Blonde isn’t about reality. It's about catering to our darkest desires; not everyone, but those of us who think we’re sublimating a shameful tabloid curiosity through respectable art. 

     Because it’s almost as if the more difficult the scenes to watch were, the more compelling and engrossing they were. It’s easy to empathize with Norma. The fictionalized Norma—a star persona of a star persona—wasn’t wanted by anyone yet wanted by all. She’s not so much relatable as a person as she is as a martyr. Because where does all her beauty, fame, talent, and the magnitude of her as a star get her? Is she any better off? How much of what makes her life so miserable is everyone else’s fault? The men? The Industry? Her own? Or is this all some truth about just the way things are? 

     There’s a distancing effect legends have. What’s unbearably horrific to process in everyday life can be shocking and somehow transformatively cathartic tragedy through legend. The disavowal from watching the mental illness, abortions, drug/child/spousal/employer/sexual abuse, and delirium may come from our certainty that ultimately none of it can tarnish her star persona. 

 

As for the look of Blonde, it embodies a style I’ve long strived to articulate. First, there’s an idea I have of what I think of as looking like an early 90s music video. And that begins with high contrast shadows, sculpted light, like 30s-40s Hollywood glam—like Fincher’s “Vogue” video. But there are other examples of harder light too. (I hate when people use German Expressionism as a term to describe high contrast black and white. Just because it’s high key and you’ve seen Caligari doesn’t mean you’re making any sense.) And I also had some kind of connection I thought existed between that Madonna backstage documentary Truth or Dare even into her whole Erotica phase and what I’d wanted to see: a movie that combines that 90s faux Old Hollywood glam look with the candid backstage erratic staginess of a photo shoot in progress. What other movie has done that?

     Some of Todd Haynes work has some of these qualities. Superstar has the look; Velvet Goldmine has the feel and staging; I’m Not There almost does it. Except Blonde is still the only movie I can think of that looks like a series of in flux high-gloss gorgeous fashion photography vignettes (it even makes a puking scene seen from inside the toilet look pretty). And it’s for this reason on which I hang my claim that it doesn’t look like all the other movies. I can’t get enough 4x3. And another of its expressionistic qualities is that Blonde shifts between aspect rations and color/black-white based on feeling or mood, instead of adhering to some formal narrative distinction. I forgot about Andrew Dominik though. He’s had some serious style in his other films. Especially Killing Them Softly (2012). That hit with the Brad Pitt character doing that drive by.

 

The ending of Blonde left me at a loss. But it’s because the way I read it in the novel devastated me to tears. It’s the same ending. But in the movie it felt hokey, a little too Twin Peaks, you know? Like Nick Cave was aping the Badalamenti moody spiritual quasi new-age synths along with some questionable only Lynch can get away with type photoshop (or just cheap cg) effects. So in the book as I recall (it’s been a long time) Norma dies and there’s this amazing kind of oh it’s finally over for her she doesn’t have to be in agonizingly excruciating pain moment and waiting for her more than anything she always wanted to see in heaven is her dad and it’s still just that snapshot and it’s so harsh, so pathetic that she never got the real thing but it means just as much to her. 

     Blonde is a work of art. The form it represents is artifice as a means to attain something real that’s really artifice that came from something real… and on and on…

 

9/23/2022 Midtown Art Cinema

Atlanta, GA

DCP