Ladies and gentlemen, we’re proud to present the debut of a new film review column here at RVA Magazine. Kyle Shearin will be covering the latest releases from the Criterion Collection. Today we present reviews of two of their four Janaury 2015 releases.
Ladies and gentlemen, we’re proud to present the debut of a new film review column here at RVA Magazine. Kyle Shearin will be covering the latest releases from the Criterion Collection. Today we present reviews of two of their four Janaury 2015 releases. We’ll have more in the future–stay tuned!
The Bitter Tears of Petra Von Kant
1972 (Germany)
Director: Rainer Werner Fassbinder
Criterion Collection Blu-Ray, DVD, and Hulu-Plus
Transplanted from the stage to screen in 1972 by renowned director Rainer Werner Fassbinder, this Italian melodrama centers on Petra Von Kant (Margit Carstensen). This successful but widowed fashion designer falls hard for a married but unsatisfied Katrin (Katrin Schaake), who extends just enough affection to stay in her bed. Kant has a completely silent servant (Hanna Schygulla) whose presence is always lurking in Kant’s lavish apartment. This relationship is painful to watch, but gives more opportunity for sadism. Months pass, and after finding some success on the runway, Katrin grows bored and leaves Kant for her returning husband, who was never the wiser. This propels Kant into pitiful madness that soon makes her turn on her few friends and even her daughter. The tears here are indeed quite bitter.
Taking place entirely in Kant’s apartment, often just mere feet from her bed, Petra Von Kant is an adaptation of Fassbinder’s stage production of the same name, written and directed by him. It was Fassbinder’s 13th feature (if you were to count his films for television) and it has remarkable restraint (perhaps because of the small budget), often indulging in long single takes of characters conversing about their lives and past mistakes. A scene can last up to 20 minutes, which really displays the film’s theatrical origins. It is remarkably simple but the questions of where this story is going and whether the protagonist’s anguish will ever let up are compelling. Kant is nothing if not a passionate character, declaring her love outright in full seduction mode and eventually being destroyed by her own desires. Perhaps Fassbinder was a miserable guy, but if so he had a very thoughtful, intensely emotional, and well-crafted way of telling us so.
This release features interviews with the primary players of the film, including Margit Carstensen, Eva Mattes, Hanna Schygulla, and Katrin Schaake. It’s interesting to see these beautiful women much later in life, and contrast their interviews with their characters, which were not entirely as lovely in the film. Director of photography Michael Ballhaus (Goodfellas, The Departed, The Last Temptation of Christ) talks about the production and tight but thoughtful camera work, a highlight of the film. Film scholar Jane Shattuc also discusses the gender politics displayed in the film, which was acted by an all-female cast but helmed primarily by a man. There’s even a German TV documentary that covers Fassbinder and the woman around him to boot. This gives plenty of insight into the film, and provides opportunities to brush up on your German.
While The Bitter Tears of Petra Von Kant makes sense as a melodrama showcasing the ugly and cruel aspects of desire, romance, and wanting what you can’t have, it often seems like a giant inside joke disguised as a character study. It’s hard to find a reason to actually care for the fabulous but miserable Petra Von Kant. She treats those around her terribly, except for the one that treats her most unkindly. Kant’s descent into desperate madness feels too quasi-tragic and harsh to ever be campy, but it can be hard to sympathize with her in her misguided obsession and her cold treatment of the people who actually care about her. While it may be a sharp contrast from the 50’s melodramas that inspired it, it excels in its emotional extremities and beautiful cinematography. At a long two hours, if it’s surreal masochistic melodrama you crave, this is your one stop shop.
My Winnipeg
2008 (Canada)
Director: Guy Maddin
Criterion Collection Blu-Ray, DVD, and Hulu-Plus
There is little out there like My Winnipeg. A bit of an avant-garde mockumentary, it takes aim at the director’s tormented, forever-buried-in-snow hometown of Winnipeg, Canada. There’s a lot covered in this 80-minute “documentary,” from director Guy Maddin who guides us through Winnipeg, a fever dream of a town where sleepwalkers are a very common occurrence. The film documents plenty of bizarre facts, hyperbole and anecdotes related to Winnipeg, including the town establishing an annual “If Day,” where fake Nazis overtake the town and annoy citizens; beloved department stores being mourned after a financial collapse; and Golden Boy pageants that are judged not by the citizens but exclusively by the mayor. These half-truths deliver a surreal, hallucinatory presentation, even extending to Maddin’s own actual family. He hires actors to portray his family (his “mother” played wonderfully by b-movie star Ann Savage), recreating particular events in his life that range from the ridiculous to the ridiculously mundane.
This “docu-fantasia,” as Maddin has described it, is uncannily funny, often unsettling, and downright eerie. It bounces from a snowy nightmare of generations past to a display of a troubled city whose waggish ghosts are creep through the banks of ghostly streets inhabited by Canadians. Maddin’s haunted psyche (often played up for humorous effect) drives the film, trapping the viewer with him in a sleepy and frozen town. He’s great at making new footage look like old footage, seamlessly blending together archives and his own childhood films with footage he shot specifically for this film. Maddin recalls his childhood, or a variation of it, to provide us a surrogate that demonstrates why nobody can simply just pack up and leave. But why would you? As the towns own annual scavenger hunt proves, once you examine and fully explore this here Winnipeg, you’ll certainly be unable to leave such a great place.
This Criterion release contains several of Maddin’s short films that tie into My Winnipeg; a 2008 featurette from a live presentation in Toronto in which Maddin himself narrated the film, to much laughter and an award; and an almost hour-long conversation between Maddin and art critic Robert Enright. Maddin is quite insightful, explaining his brilliant insanity and that he himself isn’t even sure what it all adds up to. The transfer is great, but honestly the film is almost better with a murky quality, recreating the historic feel that was largely created during the editing process.
My Winnipeg was a critical favorite during its release and festival run in the late 2000s, and it’s not hard to see why. Its biggest following is most likely within Canada, and boy is it ever gleefully and unmistakably Canadian. Not only do the usual hockey obsessions inundate My Winnipeg’s sleepy landscape, but so does the mocking humor. The faux-historical legacy, the geography, even the splendid melodrama within has a certain Canuck ambience. Perhaps that’s why the film feels something foreign, yet familiar to our American sensibilities. I can’t think of the last time I’ve seen a film that blends reality and fantasy so well that it feels more impossibly true than not. Maddin touches on an issue with all of our memories–the way they’re never as accurate as we would like them to be. My Winnipeg never feels pretentious, instead, it’s deeply personal, brimming with humanity and fantastical satire. This is quite an unusual and passionate treat.
