Despite few similarities between Siberia and Tokyo, a thriving model industry exists between the regions, facilitated by talent scouts such as Ashley Arbaugh. Wait for a big screen opportunity to drink in Carax’s parade of visual astonishments, accompanied by one of Scott Walker’s greatest scores.In “Girl Model,” scouts and agencies are complicit in advising their charges to tell prospective employers that they are 16. An adaptation of Herman Melville’s riches-to-rags yarn Pierre, or the Ambiguities (Pola X acronymically derives from Carax’s 10th draft of its French title Pierre, ou les ambiguïtés), the film was booed at its Cannes opening and languishes to this day on ill-serving DVD transfers. The opening act stands in sharp contrast to the literal plunge into darkness that follows with the arrival of a woman claiming to be his sister (Yekaterina Golubeva) her haunting, halting, introductory monologue in a darkened forest one of the premier sequences in 90s cinema. His next film, Pola X, took said extravagance as its entry point, charting the impending marriage of aristocratic scion, Pierre (Guillaume Depardieu).
A rebuke to those believing Kubrick lacked a sense of humour, Eyes Wide Shut is the work of a filmmaker who stayed ahead of the game until the very end.Ī leading proponent of France’s cinema du look movement, which foregrounded aesthetic and stylistic concerns, Leos Carax became infamous in the early 90s for his wild extravagance on Les Amants du Pont-Neuf (1991). Numerous subtexts - the presence of the soon-to-be-ex Cruise-Kidmans Kubrick’s passing prior to release Cate Blanchett’s recent admission that she, in fact, plays the orgy’s mysterious master of ceremonies - suggests a film still revealing its secrets to us. It also boasts trademark, exquisite craft - at 400 days, the shoot was the longest in movie history, and it shows. Costa’s sense for limited but precise natural lighting (a few rays coming through an ajar door, landing on a face), which he later further developed, immerses the viewer in this dark and unbearably real world, inspiring both respect for its inhabitants and anger at a society that tolerates such difficult existences.Īfter four decades spent upending our understanding of what cinema could achieve, who expected Stanley Kubrick to return from a 12 year hiatus with a film like Eyes Wide Shut? Wildly misinterpreted upon release, the last 20 years have been kind to his tale of thwarted ego, marital jealousy and masonic amour fou: Dr Bill Hartford’s unconsummated search for intimacy across nocturnal New York plays like an extended gag at a Hollywood leading man’s expense, casting Tom Cruise as the ultimate cuck. Although Costa turns these women into characters, controlling his frame and narrative in generally traditional ways, he can’t help but capture and give centre stage to Vanda and Zita’s peculiar conditions and unbelievable strength. Ossos follows the daily life and struggle of two sisters, Vanda and Zita, living in the slum town of Fontainhas, in Lisbon.
Incidentally, it also ended up being a misleading indicator of what was to come for this endlessly curious, genuinely humanist filmmaker. As far as its formal attributes go, not least the peerless editing, JFK is almost untouchable.Ĭalling Pedro Costa’s 1997 film Ossos his most commercial effort may be a stretch, but it was the one that put the Portuguese director on the map, drawing good box office results in his country. Factually, it’s nonsense, inventing speeches and people to suit the rabbit-hole of its dramatic ends. Aside from Costner’s superb turn as the fraught Garrison, an extraordinary cast includes uniformly exceptional performances, particularly from Jack Lemmon, Tommy Lee Jones, Sissy Spacek, Joe Pesci, John Candy, Gary Oldman (as Lee Harvey Oswald) and, perhaps best of all, Donald Sutherland as government spook ‘X’.
The film’s eight Oscar nominations (yielding two wins for best editing and best cinematography) are perhaps appropriately, given the shadowy nature of the events depicted, only part of the story. Stone’s gripping conspiracy yarn concentrates on New Orleans district attorney Jim Garrison (Kevin Costner) and his attempts to unravel the real ‘truth’ of the November 1963 presidential killing. Hollywood’s foremost director of epic political thrillers took on the gig of a lifetime making a film about the assassination of John F.