Here are some notes on three interesting films.

     "The Imaginarium of Dr. Parnassus" is an incendiary tableaux of fascinating imagery.  It is both an inquiry into, and a meditation on, the nature of the divide between life and death, reality and fantasy, dream or waking life.

     Terry Gilliam's ornate, phantasmagoric picture is seemingly cleaved in two.  It's as if a 70-minute film has been stretched to two hours.  The garish results are still tough to shake.  Rich in aesthetics, the film concerns a traveling circus troupe with a magic mirror that allows one to enter a realm of dreams.  Johnny Depp's character says at one point, "Nothing's permanent, not even death."

     The rules and physics of the fantasy world in "Spirited Away" follow a distinct logic, as when the spirits become transparent after walking past a certain point.  Fascinating scenes follow one another in this startling anime from Hayao Miyazaki about a girl who gets lost when her curiosity leads her to a world of spirits.  (Spoiler warning) Her parents turn into pigs in a beginning scene after eating forbidden food and she has to figure out a way to turn them human again.

     A wise old lady spirit makes a challenge, a puzzle of sorts, to the girl.  She is to choose which of a handful of disguised characters is her parents.  I was reminded of the story in Egyptian mythology of the riddle of the Sphinx -- what creature walks on four legs in the morning, two in the afternoon, and three in the evening?  (Answer:  a human; four legs when an infant, two legs when an adult, and three legs when old with a cane)

     The film glows with magic.  She meets a boy in this amusement park of sorts, and he offers her a pellet of food from this new world.  This anchors her so she doesn't fade away.  Baths are given to filthy spirits in dire need of one.  A mystical dragon is attacked by sharp pieces of origami paper.

     "Inglourious Basterds" has geometrically fasinating camera movements reminiscent of Atom Egoyan's "The Sweet Hereafter"; the camera circles the room slowly and then moves forward for a more thorough inspection of character.  Incendiary and passionate filmmaking marks a return, once again, to top form for Quentin Tarantino.

     A drinking game subtly goes sour when Nazis realize there is something fishy about an impostor's accent.  A Tarantino-esque close up shows the bartender feeling for his shotgun underneath the bar.  The shot has a mischievous wit to it that is indicative of Tarantino's style.  The scene is masterful in how it moves in tone from jovial banter to palpable, mounting suspense and then erupts into violence.  After all that ingenuity, a Mexican standoff crowns the scene as one of the most effective pieces of filmmaking and pacing that Tarantino has ever done.

     Those looking for exciting cinema that makes the blood pump will be appeased by a scene in "Inglourious Basterds" where Col. Hans Landa (Christoph Waltz) arrives at a dinner party where Shosanna (Melanie Laurent), the Jewish lady who escaped his clutches at the beginning, is having an uncomfortable meal with the Nazi high command. 

     When Landa enters the room, Shosanna instantly remembers him with taught music accompanying a flashback of pulsating intensity.  He offers her a German cigarette, not her favorite; she prefers French tobacco.  A fellow festival-goer at the Telluride Film Festival last year pointed out how Landa eats his streusel.  Tarantino subtly turns up the sound while he is eating his pastry and makes him seem carniverous.

     The film is full of ingenious sequences.  (Spoiler warning) Landa negotiating his surrender is a dazzler.  The scene where the cinema burns down has the Nazis receiving their most satisfying comeuppance since God punished them with lightning in "Raiders of the Lost Ark."  The montage showing Shosanna getting ready for the big night is gorgeous to behold. 

Tags: Film Review

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