Possession (1981)

"From now on she'll know how much righteous anger and sheer will she's got in her to say: 'I, I can do as well, I can be better! I'm the best!' Only in this case can she become a success. Nobody taught me that. That's why I'm with you. Because you say 'I' for me."

    connection, loneliness, the vulgarity of a human rejected, the vulgarity of a human emotionally imprisoned. possession is flourishing with complexity, as stylistically exhilarating as it is viciously emotional. a dark, sinister, and bitter psychological film that blends the jagged, synthy, grimy, practical effect heavy style of 80's horror with an eye for inventive arthouse storytelling.

but first! here's the deathfart obligatory feminist analysis block!

    possession is an excellent film made by a less then eloquent man, which i say from the perspective of watching the full film into watching the director's commentary. however, my appraisal of this film remains afloat on this one quote from andrzej żuławski:

I try to make films about morals but without morality because I don't believe in preaching... some of my Polish colleagues are making (films) like that saying "this is good, this is wrong, this you should do, this you shouldn't". I don't believe that. If you point your finger to a moral dilemma, if the audience is not totally stupid, they will draw their own conclusions. They will say what's useful to them.

    if you've read my article on citizen kane, you'll understand how crucial a film's perspective on women can be to my overall enjoyment of the story. with the microcosmic patriarchy that is the film industry, the objectifying or discriminating depiction of women is a frequent barricade to me enjoying maybe like 90% of critically acclaimed pictures. with possession, you have a recipe for much of the same. a man director treats his female actors like garbage and makes a tantrum-filled emotionally explosive film about his relationship with his freshly divorced ex-wife and women in general. yet, żuławski isn't your typical charlie kaufman (at least not in regards to his work, i'm sure if i met the guy it'd be a different story).

I'm a strong believer in couples, in marriages, in children... most of the scenes that are taking place between the man and the woman are picked out of my life, even the dialog. But, I wrote the film not to be complacent with myself.

    the last line żuławski relays here seems like it would be ham-fisted, but i believe it to be true and successfully executed. both mark (the husband) and anna (the wife) are equally deplorable and selfish people in this picture. in fact, i find myself sympathizing with anna through most of the film despite us following mark for the majority. and yes, there's a lot of stories that are told where its like "oh everyone's a terrible person and that's the point" and its true that they suck more often than not. it feels like a totally destructive and worthless approach to storytelling, it's often a recipe for a film that can relish in the aesthetics of being an asshole while flippantly claiming some sort of half-baked dismissal of said behavior.
    possession, to me, circumvents this. this will be very anecdotal of my own interpretation of the film, but i cite the first żuławski quote as a means of validating my interpretation. possession is very much a detached journey into the minds of a couple who are very clearly terrible fucking people in their own way, that much is made clear of them right from the start. i think the film does a great job at never insisting that you sympathize with either of them for the sake of its point, only that you reflect on their downfalls through the very symbolic and visually rich storytelling.

anna (left), helen (right)

    you might cite that mark's relationship with helen is the closest thing to an answer to the madness that the film provides. helen is this lovely, domesticated woman, the most frustrating cliche of any misogynist film. but i don't see helen as a refuge or a reward for mark, but rather a symbol of mark's own perpetual, selfish escape from his own flaws through the women in his life. given the fact that helen is, you know, a suspiciously idyllic anna doppelganger (played by the same actor), i see helen as being the embodiment of mark's view of each woman as an identical, disposable replacement of the last, he look at women not as individuals but as something to fill a role in his life. helen is consistently artificial throughout the movie, a two-dimensional stand in compared to the ever complex anna. i don't think the film shows us the Real Helen, i think we only see helen through mark's eyes: we see his own living misogyny.

this has been the deathfart obligatory feminist analysis block!

    ok, there's my obligatory feminist takes, what of the rest of the film? it's fan-fucking-tastic!

    the pounding synth soundtrack sets the tone perfectly for this fuckin' grimy, depraved wasteland (endearing). the practical effects fucking rock, totally disgusting and freaky, the coloring and visual subjects of the film are enthralling, the dark humor is hysterical and benefits the ridiculously dramatic style, and the dialog hits the sweet-spot of being not too pretentious but just pretentious enough to where lines of dialoge can simultaneously hit hard thematically and be comically badass.

HEINRICH: There's nothing to fear except God. Whatever that means to you.

MARK: For me, God is a disease.

HEINRICH: That's why through the disease, we can reach God.

    it manages to be powerful, complex, and fucking stupid all at the same time and all these qualities harmoniously elevate the whole film.
    this isn't to say the film isn't without straight-up emotionally gripping moments, in fact i would say that's the bulk of the film. the subway scene and the ballet scene most famously, but also the spiral staircase scene at the end and anna's cryptic monologue about sister faith and sister chance. the blending of humor, surrealist absurdity, and unbridled raw catharsis is fucking perfect, it's unbelievable. one could not exist without the other and everything adds up to the intricately measured insanity that makes possession an ever-memorable film that brings you back constantly, constantly luring you in to understand all it's thematic complexities as you bathe in the glorious stylish hellscape.

    i can totally understand if it isn't your thing, it's very in-your-face and unforgivingly over the top. if it's schlocky to some or trying too hard, i get that. i think the visceral impact of some of the rawer scenes have certainly worn on me over the years, but hell if they aren't still cool as fuck. i find it to be a brilliant, wild ride and i always discover something new whevever i watch it. also the spies are gay and that's cute :)

FINAL SCORE:

9 / 10

The LEGO Movie (2014)

"...the only thing anyone needs to be special is to believe that you can be. I know that sounds like a cat poster, but it's true. Look at what you did when you believed you were special. You just need to believe it some more."

    totally hysterical, visually adventurous, and morally poignant. i really only took on this write up to articulate how cleverly this movie executes its themes. if you wish to avoid spoilers, beware because this whole write up will be full of them and will probably only be digestible if you've seen the movie.

    essentially this entire story is a metaphor for a father/son story as well as a figment of the son's imagination. it's fairly abstract in its execution; emmett crosses over to the real world and with the implication that the father's real-world disassembling of the son's creations affects the characters in emmett's world. it's incredibly emotionally powerful with its use of calling back to vitruvious's speech and a general blend of hilarious jokes and thrilling action. not to mention, the catharsis of emmett's newfound master builder skills is exciting and rewarding beyond words.

    what's especially impressive to me is the length it goes to for it's great message to really resonate with not only children, but our inner child. you see, its one thing to make a fantasy children's film with a good message, but sometimes the message can go over the head of younger audiences since the action and glamour kinda steals the spotlight. but with paralleling this message to the story of the father and the son, the emotional stakes of the initial story are not only heightened, but the message and moral become all the more resonate and meaningful both in how the son (the child) is endorsed in his rule-breaking creativity and how the father (the adult) is encouraged to rekindle his own rule-breaking creativity. it just works so, so well and it's so insanely clever to me and gives me a whole other perspective on how abstract storytelling in children's films can be harmonious with its moral-instilling intent.

    also: the fact that the prophecy is made up and the message is essentially that you just gotta believe that you're the shit in order to become it? genius. actual pure genius. it's the formula of escapist "what if a relatable regular guy like you was the chosen one" flipped on its head in the most delightful way. it's not escapism, its fucking true! you are the chosen one! you ARE the special!!!

    anyways, that's the biggest thing i appreciate about the film. the visual splendor of the brick-film homage animation goes without mentioning. love these scenes specifically:

    the animation ideas present are not only mesmerizing, but they have an added "wow" in the sense that they invoke the idea of "yaknow... this Could be done with LEGOs". which is cool when you consider the films overall message of evoking creativity! fancy that!

    i have a couple of nitpicks in that the presence of indigenous stereotypes in the old west segment of the film is really annoying and disappointing. my interest in the film also fluctuated through most of the second act, especially during the master builder's infiltration of president business's base of operations. the sense of humor kind of loses its sting for most of this part. except for

You guys gotta check out these new sub-woofers I installed in the back, I call them "The Dogs." Listen to 'em bark!

    that part rules. 

    anyways, this is like a perfect children's film and an especially powerful film for adults as well. it's just the perfect recipe for a film that i should wanna give to a child for them to obsess about for months on end. too bad i'll never have a lil runt of my own. that's what cats are for!

FINAL SCORE

8 / 10

Citizen Kane (1941)

classy boy cinema

    i was imprisoned in a private prep high school for 3 years of my adolescence. i witnessed firsthand the institution of breeding business bros and hustle culture toxic men who relished in the aesthetic of the chiseled, rich, suit-wearing cishet white man. citizen kane embodies this spirit, whether it be in critique or in hypocritical celebration. the ultimate message of the film is the emptiness of affluence, sure, but how does citizen kane arrive there? does it do so with grace? does it do so in a way that isnt plagued by the racist misogynistic bar of cinematic quality during 1941? 

    no!

    ill delve into that later tho. i do wish to highlight a myriad of storytelling and filmic qualities within this movie that i have to admit are still compelling. the cinematography of gregg toland especially. there's a lot of shots that are pretty breathtaking compositionally. here are a few of my favorites:

    i think if anything the cinematography is far and beyond the most cativating element of this film. it took hollywood a good like 2 decades to catch up with the consistent inventiveness of a lot of these shots. characters are blocked and framed in very broad ways from very obtuse angles. the film has great use of characters moving around in the frame to emphasize the emotions of the scene, like when characters walk away from the camera, becoming smaller, to illustrate something like their waning confidence or something.

    i enjoy also how the film positions the characters whose perspectives we are supposed to view the scenes from. take the second screenshot, we are viewing this discussion between thatcher and kane from the perspective of bernstein since this is a flashback. so, the camera is positioned behind bernstein where bernstein is tucked into the left side of the frame, almost as if to become a part of it. from within this newly crafted frame, kane and thatcher converse accordingly. very clever!

    as far as the storytelling goes, i can say i enjoy a few things about it:

• the cliche newsreel is a good introduction, especially in the way it's halted abruptly and smash cuts away to the smoky theatre full of informal chaps reviewing the thing. sets the tone for how this film breaks away from the filmic status quo of the time.
• the film is structurally well made. the unraveling of the past rather than the future is a storytelling model that has always fascinated me. the dialog feels very natural and there are some lines that do stick with me.
• the ending is good. spoiler warning but rosebud is the sled he had as a child and this is only revealed as blink at the end and it will forever be a mystery to everyone in the story. its a really profound way of articulating the paling fulfillment of kane's "success" when compared to his humble rural childhood from which he had been kidnapped. i like that it's something that nobody will know about him.

    now with all this said... i still think this film falls flat in a lot of ways. firstly, the critique the film has on financial success is incredibly weak and too forgiving of the wealthy for me to get behind. it comes from a place of sympathizing with kane, the rich reckless asshole that used money for his own selfish causes from beginning to end. and like okay sure, the film makes a note of this in the form of leland confronting kane in like the second act:

LELAND: You talk about the people of the United States as though they belonged to you. When you find out they don't think they are, you'll lose interest. You talk about giving them their rights as though you could make a present of liberty. Remember the working man? You used to defend him quite a good deal. Well, he's turning into something called organized labor and you don't like that at all. And listen, when your precious underprivileged really get together - that's going to add up to something bigger than - than your privilege and then I don't know what you'll do - sail away to a desert island, probably, and lord it over the monkeys.

    but my issue in the film is that we never really SEE the working man, the ones that kane takes advantage of constantly. we only watch kane's transformation into a sad shitty old man and this is where we are expected to derive our emotional investment. this gripe is very transparently dependent on my own political stance, but i think thats fine because this is a very political film. the rich are greedy and selfish and terrible for as long as they remain rich, end of story. much in the way leland articulates it, holding onto wealth is going to always be at the expense and exploitation of the lower-class.

    citizen kane has its cake and eats it too. the emotional highs of the film still relish in the glitz and glamour of upper-class life. take for example the dance number where a bunch of conventionally attractive white women are singing a song about how great kane is. this scene is made out to be a highpoint for kane and for the story in general, and yet its just kane being a douchebag and sexually harassing dancers as if that makes him fun and quirky and admirable. its as if the problem in the film isnt that kane is rich, its the way he USED his riches by the end. which is strange because doing something like building your private island (something the film illustrates as sad and terrible bc kane is building it to fill the emptiness and loneliness in his soul) is fundamentally the same brand of evil to me as curating a dance number in your name and taking over a newspaper business because it "would be fun".

    that reminds me, one scene in particular stuck with me from about 23 minutes in, kane rejects the inheritance of gold mines and oil companies and other fortunes and only accepts the new york enquirer as his proper inheritance as he thinks it would be fun. he rejects what is posed as the one of the biggest inheritance ever to instead use only a partial amount of it to do his own thing. i feel like this is how kane is positioned as "one of the good rich people" in the beginning of the movie. like the scene where he's taking over the enquirer with all of his rebellious headstrong ideas much at the ire of the old curmudgeon boss. kane is supposed to be charming here but from my perspective, this amounts to nothing more than him coming across as an entitled asshole. he's not a scamp, he's not an underdog, he's a privileged piece of shit from the start, which is something i feel as though isnt the films intent. and if it is, it sure as hell isn't enjoyable to watch.

    the second intended emotional high in this film is kane's love afair. which is, of course, him cheating on his fucking family with a 22-year old that he frequently calls "young lady". he even makes a point at saying 22 is "a ripe old age" even though the dude, according to the timeline of the film, is at least fucking 60. SIXTY!!! that's fucking gross and creepy!! whats even the point of that? the extent of their relationship is kane being manipulative and abusive which yes IS the point which ill admit is handled fine (although it still gives kane FAR too much sympathy i think), but the beginning of their relationship is painted as charming and heartwarming despite all the external circumstances that make it completely and unobjectionably fucked.

    despite all its filmic innovations, citizen kane doesnt really overcome the handicap that is its ancient moral compass and wimpy social commentary. it's a novel watch if your interested in the history of american cinema or if you're enticed by some really cool cinematography. too bad the cinematography was wasted in elevating a story that is unapologetically 80 years old and written by a wealthy white misogynist.

FINAL SCORE:

5 / 10

Babe: Pig in the City (1998)

"Something broke through the terror--flickerings, fragments of his short life, the random events that delivered him to this, his moment of annihilation. As terror gave way to exhaustion, Babe turned to his attacker, his eyes filled with one simple question: Why?"

    fuck my fucking world. its been a long time since a movie has made me cry this dramatically. babe: pig in the city has the exterior shell of a 90's children's romp, but thats merely a vehicle for telling a deeply resonate and mournful story about the death of empathy in our industrialized hyper-capitalist hellscape shitworld. but pardon me im getting ahead of myself.

    its a movie about talking animals, thats probably the central and most obvious thing going on. they have like airbud-style cg mouth movements. and ok, im with you. i know where your heads at. i know when its like theres this film or piece of media or whatever that you wouldnt expect to be amazing but then someone tells you its good and then thats a fun conversation starter and then a bunch of people start echoing that opinion because it makes you seem interesting when you say babe: pig in the city is an eloquent commentary on capitalism. listen to me!!! look at this fucking film!!!

look at what they did with the MONKEYS!!!!

    ok you get it. how does this film do what it supposedly does? how does the pig end up in the big city? well, its a sequel to babe, a film ive never seen before but am now realizing i desperately need to see. babe is about a prized hog who is the best sheepherder ever or something (im going purely off info i surmised from the beginning of this film). until one day! babe accidentally brutally maims his human dad in a well repairing accident (which yes is depicted on screen about as graphically as you could for a G movie) and now the Babe Estate has no one to tend to the farm and no money. so babe and his human mom head to the big city to take up an offer to have babe show off his sheepherding talents at some fair for financial compensation. because of pretty much no reason outside of the unyielding brutality of the world, the two miss their flight in a layover and have to bunk up in this random city where the animals are cruel and the police are crueler. a series of unfortunate events occur, babe becomes separated from his mom and is left to his own devices surrounding by city-slinkin' talking animals like chimps and dogs and cats and whatever.

    the animals are cruel to babe, horribly cruel. there's one scene where babe is kidnapped by the chimp family and forced to be apart of a clown show for sick kids with promise of reward. after the show falls apart and the clown FUCKIN DIES, this exchange happens:

BABE: Just tell me. There is no reward, is there? Was there ever such a thing?

WIFE CHIMP: As Bob always says-- What do you say, Bob?
BOB (HUBBY CHIMP): It's all illusory-- it's ill, and it's for losers.
WIFE CHIMP: Naw, that wasn't it. You know, that stuff about no yesterday and no tomorrow.
BOB: All you got is this actual "now-ness." The past is gone, and as for the future-- [ Blows Raspberry ]
WIFE CHIMP: Yeah. No guarantees, my little pork pie. It's a dog-eat-dog world and there's not enough dog to go around. So you look after number whatsy. Get my drift?

    afterwards, babe looks longingly out the window at the almost fantasy like sprawling cityscape. the narrator reads:

"It's tough if you're a pig alone in the city. It can leave you empty. And whom do you turn to? Where was the boss's wife? He thought it might help if he could recall Fly and Rex and their steadfast words, and he tried really hard, but he could barely remember the face of his beloved boss. The farm was fading. It had become just a comforting dream, an echo."

    the film is about the apathy of industry and the dangers of unattended capitalism, how it kindles selfishness in the human soul. it brought me to tears, really fuckin' guttural tears. but this film isn't nihilist. at its core, the film truly believes in kindness. babe is kind to the animals around him, despite their ravenous violence and vitriol. babe shows kindness, even to the dog that chased babe into a river, babe responds by saving the dog from drowning. even when all is lost and animal control herds off all the animals to a testing facility, even when an animal control pole is stuck around his neck, babe pushes on to save their lives. a duck friend from the farm named ferdinand tries to convince babe that they should go home instead:

FERDINAND: Pig! You're unraveling here! "A," they are long gone. "B," they were not nice people. "C" is for kamikaze and "D" is for delusional, which is what you are in the head!
BABE: Ferdy.
FERDINAND: Face it. You're just a little pig in the big city. What can you possibly do?
What can anyone do? Why even try?
(BABE turns around and sees one of the stray dogs in a creaking doggy wheelchair, wandering aimlessly in search of his friends. BABE turns to his newfound monkey friend.)

BABE: Would you help me off with this, please?
(the monkey aids BABE in removing the animal control pole and the two of them walk on into the rainy night)

    elegant. fucking elegant. not a resounding speech. just a profound image, a doggy in need of help, and the unstoppable empathy of our hero. what a beautiful fucking film.

     this films eye for visual metaphors is incredible, there's one sprinkled in every beat of this film. this write-up would be so boring if i was here relaying every single one to you. instead i'll say that one of the most valuable storytelling devices i discovered in this film was the power of symbolism. symbols and metaphors and small stories will say so much more about the greater context and message of a film than any soapbox speech could. this film is chock full of profoundly moving images and scenes that contribute immensely in this films success in articulating very complex, ambitious, and deeply political themes.

    this reminds me, theodore is probably the deepest, most interesting orangutan character ever put to screen. see him above clasping a fish bowl before his capture, and see him above that at the stain glass window mourning the loss of his owner. he's enters the film for the first time from offscreen as the chimp family is trying to figure out what the fuck kinda animal babe is:

THELONIUS: You drooling imbeciles. This is an omnivorous mammal of the order Ungulata, an inconsequential species with no other purpose... than to be eaten by humans.
This lowly, handless, deeply unattractive mud-lover... is a pig.

    hes like a harbinger of the logical, hes an objectivist douchebag, but throughout the film he is trampled by authority figures, whether it be the police or the authoritative hand of fate, the death of his caregiver. he is stripped of his dignity and made a victim of the snobbish values that he embodies. he's even literally stripped after being kidnapped by the scientists in the final act of the film and as everyone is making a break for it courtesy of the pig, thelonius halts the operation: 

CHIMP KID: Wh-- Where's Thelonius?
BOB: What are you doing?
(thelonius is dressing himself in the corner)
THELONIUS: I-- I'm not dressed.
WIFE CHIMP: But, Thelonius, you're an orangu-thingy.
THELONIUS: I'm not dressed.
BABE: Mr. Thelonius? Time to go.
(thelonius ignores babe and continues dressing, despite security being hot on their trail)

     this is maybe the most complex commentary in the film. as if traumatized by the formalities of the big city, thelonius puts his life and the lives of his companions at risk by getting dressed instead of escaping. thelonius clings to this ego, his selfish ideals, even as his life is destroyed before his eyes by goons acting upon the very same ideals. idunno. could just be a funny dressing monkey scene.

    i've analyzed about all i can analyze with this film. i am blown away, wasn't ready for this film in the slightest. a truly fantastic film with a lot of really great ideas to offer. i hope the animals were treated nice? <:)

FINAL SCORE:

9.5 / 10