Filmstruck is a great company for anyone interested in watching films from cinema’s past. The site has nearly everything, including great films from other countries: think Netflix for Turner Classic Movies. In this post I’m gonna give you a host of recommendations based on all the stuff that I’ve seen on the site. We’ll break this into 3 brackets: CONSIDER, SKIP, and MUST SEE.
For this post, let’s bring on the SKIPs
SKIP
In the Mood for Love
Rating:
A man and a woman, each in a marriage where the spouses cheat on each other, grow closer together realizing the failings of their significant others.
Does it hold up?: The material makes sense, it’s just not interesting. This is a movie that is directed great by Wong Kar Wai. But great direction doesn’t save a boring story, which In the Mood for Love is. The courtship is a slow burn, which isn’t necessarily bad, but when it’s too slow it’s easy to disengage, which I did…repeatedly. I almost fell asleep many times watching this one, and I’m guessing a casual viewer might as well.
Bicycle Theives
Rating:
This movie is about an Italian man who needs a bike for a job during a recession, and it gets stolen, so he has to track it down or risk losing his job.
Does it hold up?: The material does yes. It’s pretty devastating to watch this poor man try and fail to keep his job, a bleak metaphor for working class people. However, material that bleak borders on unwatchable at times due to its sadness. It also moves slow at times, not helping the unwatchability. If Bicycle Thieves could have found some more mini bits of optimism, it would have earned its prestige for me, but as is, it’s just too bleak and slow to warrant a recommendation to everyone.
La Cienaga
Rating:
Lucretia Martel’s film, like so many on this list, is a slow burn. One rich and one poor Argentinian family in the summer have their houses overrun with people, until their exasperation reaches a breaking point.
Does it hold up?: Noticing a theme here? The concept of the idle rich and the exhausted poor is timeless, so that’s ok. However, this movie has to set up how lethargic everyone is here. This is a movie where people talk about what is happening instead of doing something themselves, which I get is the point. However, that doesn’t make the end product any more watchable. It also doesn’t help that many of these people are just awful, and very judgmental of others when they have not earned the right to be, which would be fine if the movie properly balanced its malaise with more interesting world building, which I don’t think it does enough of.
The French New Wave
This genre famously was OF it’s time, tackling social issues in France of the day (late 1950s to 1970). It is more famous technically for what it brought to the table in the movie industry (jump cuts, long takes, improvisation) than in substance of the topics it was covering, most of which don’t carry the weight that they did in post-war France.
Breathless () Jean-Luc Godard’s first film, is technically about the malaise of the self-obsessed youth. However, the casual nature of how star Jean-Paul Belmondo murders a cop, and then whines his way into Jean Seberg’s pants by repeatedly asking her when they’ll sleep together just grows tiring and condescending over time. By the time we get to the end of the movie, and Belmondo is getting his comeuppance FAR too late, I was rooting for the movie to be over, because of how uninteresting and irritating the lead character is.
Godard is the famous name from the era, but Eric Rohmer also holds a stake in the new wave movement. Rohmer famously has a film grouping called “The 6 Moral Tales” about supposedly brutal moral ambiguities that need to be discussed. Let me know if you can see the gray in some of these:
- The Bakery Girl of Monceau – A guy dates a girl because he didn’t get a chance to date the girl he wants to. Kinda just sounds like a dick…
- Suzanne’s Career – Best friend of a womanizer likes the womanizer’s girl, forcing the womanizer to manipulate the woman for his personal amusement. Sounds like multiple jerks here…
- My Night at Maud’s – Man thinks he’s destined to date one woman but ends up with a strong spontaneous connection to another woman. More on this one above…
- La collectioneuse – Lazy idyll rich man detests a loose woman who “collects” men, but secretly loves her. Grow a pair, dude!
- Claire’s Knee – Older, engaged man is amusingly tempted to sleep with teenage (like 14 -16, not 18) girls before he commits to his wife. The tempting is egged on by an older female friend of the older man. EWWWWWWW…..
- Love In the Afternoon – Married man is tempted by a seductive single woman. THAT’s never been done, I’m sure, in 1972, as I laugh to myself.
Rohmer’s films reek of privileged contemplation due to boredom, seeing things that SEEM like ambiguities only because you have the time to manufacture some. Here are the ratings of each of those films:
- The Bakery Girl of Monceau – . This one is mercifully short and at least compelling with touches of grayness outside of the misogyny.
- Suzanne’s Career – . VERY repetitive, and Suzanne is painted in a way that makes her look hella dumb only to be saved by voiceover, which is lazy storytelling.
- My Night at Maud’s – . Covered in the CONSIDER section…
- La collectioneuse – . This film tries to artfully slut shame an awesome female character, and just feels scummy to watch as time goes on.
- Claire’s Knee – . This film is borderline reprehensible, only saved by the beautiful scenery of Southeastern France and a clever ending.
- Love In the Afternoon – . There’s nothing we haven’t seen before here, but Zouzou’s performance as the seductress is sexy and captivating.