Oneirocriticon

Wednesday, November 9, 2011

Woyzeck

The sequence that opens Werner Herzog's eponymous adaptation of Georg Büchner's play defines and encapsulates the entire film. The visceral has always been the most direct modality of artistic communication, perhaps even the most efficient. Even if this film means, for us, the first contact with Woyzeck, at the first glimpse of Klaus Kinski, beaten like a dog, wallowing desperately through a series of repetitive movements, like meat going through the grinder — we know it then, as if we had always known him: that is Woyzeck. And in fact, he cannot fail to appear familiar: Woyzeck is the man of old, of always, and, simultaneously, the promise of modern man, and its resounding failure.

Black Swan (2010)

Darren Aronofsky, along with Gaspar Noé, Lars von Trier and Michael Haneke is one of the best independent filmmakers of this generation. From this diverse group, his films have always been, for the lack of a better expression, the more accessible and humane.

This facet has always worked in his favor: the human condition in his films, though portrayed in a raw manner, is also distilled with less bile than in the works of his colleagues. For Noé, Trier and Haneke, the protagonists are sacrificial lambs, to be launched into the jaws of a cruel and absurd universe for study purposes; for Aronofsky, they are condemned creatures, whose destruction is filmed without falter, but also with compassion. However, Black Swan, marks a crossroads for the director: it is both his greatest success to date, and his less genuine piece.

Glengarry Glenn Ross (1992)

Few themes had such an impact over north-american fiction as the "American dream". It emerged from the unconscious need of a young, fast-growing country, to form its own cultural and ethical identity. From the Declaration of Independence to the apple pie, the American imaginarium, albeit rich in external influences, is sui generis, of a very particular charm and character.

Last Tango in Paris (1972)

A review of Last Tango in Paris requires, in a way, a parallel discussion of modern cinema history, and of the participants in the movie itself - which, when released, was promptly banned in several countries, and made as much commotion as profit. The famous review of Pauline Kael in The New Yorker announced to the world the dawn of a new era in cinema. However, after all these years, what we have come upon instead is a landscape that has, cleverly and in a mocking way, evaded the prophecies of such clairvoyants.

Zardoz (1974)

An enormous stone head wades through the air, descending into earth. There, it is approached by a group of horsemen, wearing masks that immediately remind us of the two-faced god of the romans: Janus. Janus Bifrons, he that contemplates both past and future simultaneously; through his gates, the call to war is given.