FILM WATCHING JOURNAL;

I’m really jealous of those guys like Kim Newman who seem to have made a prosperous career out of watching a load of strange films and telling people about them. I mean, look at the guy, he’s amazing! He gets to spend his whole life cultivating magnificent facial hair and waxing lyrical about the influence of ‘30s Tarzan features on the development of Italian cannibal films, whilst occasionally being filmed for a spurious Channel 5 documentary (with his absurdly well-stocked book/video shelves as a backdrop) or knocking out a quick round-up of the latest Hong Kong revenge thrillers for a glossy film magazine. That’s the life for me.

And I watch loads of strange films! (Not half as many admittedly, but I’m working on it.) I could do it! If I work hard enough, maybe one day I too could be living in Kim Newman’s Life of Riley! I shall tell people about the films I’ve watched in a witty and forthright manner and hope they enjoy it! Here goes…

15/10/04

Bukowski: Born Into This (John Dullaghan, US, 2004)

A massively entertaining film biography of the great Charles Bukowski. A total hagiography in fact, with the subject’s sprawling genius and heroic demeanour remaining unquestioned throughout. But then where’s a poor documentary maker supposed to go for balance with a guy who made his lechery, alcoholism and penchant for violence into his greatest assets? But anyway, this film is built largely on first hand footage of Bukowski talking about stuff and wondering around, from various eras and levels of drunkenness, with a few mercifully incisive talking head interviewees thrown in. Hank comes across as a thoroughly charismatic and dignified dude throughout, with only occasional lapses into slurred incoherence, and should you need further convincing that he’s more than just a wasted oaf with a typewriter, the readings of his truly extraordinary poetry will evaporate the air in your lungs and turn your veins to tears. (On the downside, Bono somehow manages to get his fucking oar in, giving his big spiel about how he’s ‘always been a huge fan’ like the self-righteous git he is, lowering the tone of the whole thing.)

16/10/04

The Legend of Hell House (John Hough, US/UK,1973)

The ever-reliable late night BBC 1 horror movie slot comes up with the goods once again. This is basically a reworking of The Haunting (Robert Wise, 1963), and whilst it lacks that film’s remarkable subtlety and cinematic flair, it still provides surprisingly decent haunted house / psychic phenomena fare. The hard-nosed sceptic doctor scowls at everyone and builds a big machine to try and ‘capture’ the house’s evil energy fields whilst his wife sleepwalks around being hypnotised into lustful impulses. The mentally damaged sole-survivor-of-previous-haunted-house-experiment does a marvellously creepy “you’re all going to die!” turn, and the pretty young psychic tries to solve the mysteries and make contact with the spirits in the house, before realising that they’re a bit, well, malevolent. And she’s really put through the mill bless her, with most of the best scenes involving her being terrorised in one way of another by crazy new invisible evils. Pretty well filmed, ok script, surprisingly good acting, cool ectoplasm effects, a mental rabid cat attack and – good lord! – sex with a poltergeist. Not bad.

17/10/04

Woman of the Dunes (Hiroshi Teshigahara, Japan, 1964)

I could kiss the proprietors of my local arts cinema for screening stuff like this on a Sunday afternoon within easy walking distance of my house. One of those films it’s impossible to do justice to with words, ‘unique’ isn’t really strong enough to describe the extraordinary qualities of this legendary film. Although it’s undoubtedly quite strange, I think it’s safe to say that Teshigahara’s existentialist masterwork manages to transcend cult status altogether, and I’d contest that it deserves to be seen alongside the canonical classics of new wave / art cinema – Bunuel, Godard and Cocteau all spring to mind as apt comparisons.
So what’s it about then? Well it’s about this man who’s wandering in the desert collecting insects (does Japan really have any deserts that size? Does it matter?), and he gets tricked into spending the night in the house of a woman who lives alone in a deep gorge between sand dunes. But in the morning the local villagers take away the rope ladder and tell him that he has to spend the rest of his life with this woman, shovelling sand all day in the hot sun for some rather ill-defined reason. And, er, that’s about it really.

No, no, I mean what’s it ABOUT? Oh, I see, well it’s about the confinement of the material world, gnostic frustration and the tyranny of the flesh. It’s about isolation and the stifling and ultimately pointless nature of human relationships, it’s about man’s subservience to nature, the mysterious roots of the sexual urge, geography and loss of identity. It’s about lively Godard-esque stylised naturalism, staggeringly beautiful nature footage, the abstractions of extreme close-up, montage and the power of pure cinema. Fuck it, let’s face it, it’s about EVERYTHING. It’s breathtaking. Most of all though, it’s about sand. Lots and lots and lots of sand. In terms of sheer amount of sand on screen, I think Lawrence of Arabia is the only possible contender.

19/10/04

Festival Express (Bob Smeaton, US, 1970/2004)

Another great documentary, this one’s about a load of mighty and unshaven bands - the Grateful Dead, the Band, Janis Joplin, Buddy Guy, the Flying Burrito Brothers - travelling around Canada on a big train, putting on a full scale festival at each stop, back in 1970. And it's the absolute bestest! Train cars full of wasted rock dudes playing humongous country/blues-rock jams as vast panoramas of Canadian countryside trundle by.. WOW! Take this musical era’s overwhelming concentration on roots ruralism and ragged grandeur, add BIG TRAINS and CANADA – it’s hard to imagine how the surrounding could have been more attuned to the music.

And obviously it has brilliantly filmed concert footage of all the groups involved, notable for the way in which they all Totally Rock in Your Face, somewhat undermining the common belief that early 70s festival rock was quite dull. Plus you've also got a great verite record of the ugly fallout of post-hippy youth culture, with armies of disenfranchised flower children hassling the pigs outside the stadium gates, demanding free entry and picking fights, almost resulting in Atlamont-style chaos before a makeshift free festival is arranged in a Toronto park ("all we need is two flatbed trucks..") and the day is saved.
Also present are some of the greatest beards ever captured on film, a lot of thunderous guitar mangling, good natured substance abuse and strange dope-stifled political discourse.

The footage is amazing throughout – clearly someone had put a lot of time and effort into documenting all this stuff on film – and if you’re remotely interested in this kind of scene, then for gods sake get out and see it. Should make for classic late night post-spliff viewing for a certain kind of individual when (if?) it gets a DVD release.