Quiet Days in Clichy (Stille dage i Clichy)

Clichy is one of those rare movies that made it into one of my DVD binders without me ever having watched it. When I finally did watch it a few days ago, I was surprised by how little dialogue there was, and that what dialogue there was happened to be in English. I was also shocked by the pornographic sex scenes, reminiscent of Baise-moi (I know this movie came decades later), that dominated the first part of the film. When I say pornographic, I mean close ups of vaginal penetration. My friend and his girlfriend just happened to come back to the house when I put in the Clichy DVD and I felt compelled to text him “No, I’m not watching loud porn” and “I think the technical term is ‘experimental artsy fuck film from the 70s’” because of all the loud moaning I imagined coming from my bedroom.

Clichy is almost a slight perversion of what I imagined my life being like after graduating from NYU, save for double teaming prostitutes and turning a retarded 15 year old into my domesticated sex slave, and spoke to my inner misogynist. I still have the theme song stuck in my head and am jealous I didn’t come up with the phrase “she's got all her brains in her cunt.” It amazes me that I still have romantic dreams of living as a starving artist abroad, considering my current circumstances and career path. As an uncelebrated painter or fledgling radio man, I’m still starving in the end, but I’d be lying if I said I wouldn’t rather be starving with paint on my clothes.

If the makers of Clichy concentrated more on the story that developed towards the end of the movie instead of focusing on being provocative or experimental it would have resulted in something enjoyable. They could have even further explored the strange concubine scheme and I would have been content to watch it unravel. As it stands, Clichy is either a bad drama or a bad porno, take your pick. I don’t imagine myself watching it again, except to hear the song again, and that’s only assuming I can’t find it on You Tube.

There were two girls from the café
We picked both of them up one day
We took both of them to our flat
And the red-headed one gave Carl the clap

The dark-haired girl took off her shoe
She smiled at Joey and then she was through
He tried everything but just as luck
The one from Jamaica just wouldn't fuck

Oh quiet days in Clichy
Oh quiet days in Clichy

Little Colette she has no sense
Serving the breakfast without her pants
Spoiling the coffee, burning the eggs
All of her brains are between her legs

Baby Colette she's all grown up
Sweeping the floor and washing the tub
Cleaning the dishes and ironing the clothes
What she's thinking, God only knows

Oh quiet days in Clichy
Oh quiet days in Clichy

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iDI456BsBuU

I was watching the latest episode of The Big Bang Theory the other day and the weirdest thing happened to me.  When Leonard got out of bed to investigate a sound that ended up being Sheldon playing bongo drums in the middle of the night, my first thought was “don’t forget to unplug from the wall.” The LVAD has officially infected my thought process. I sometimes catch myself watching TV or a movie and trying to find out where the actor or actress is hiding their LVAD under their costume.

On Thursday I have my next monthly LVAD appointment. I don’t know which I dislike more, the monthly appointments in Dallas or the weekly blood draws in Denton. Even assuming that the techs don’t fuck up my echocardiogram again, I’m not expecting any improvement. Why? Because they don’t actually work on strengthening my heart at UT Southwestern. They only work on maintaining the purgatory that is my time with the pump. I haven’t worked out in weeks because of my recent blood pressure/med issues and my recent weight loss and insomnia aren’t exactly indicators of increasing health.

Bohachi Bushido: Code of the Forgotten Eight (Bôhachi bushidô: Poruno jidaigeki)

I think it’s pretty obvious what I was thinking about when I bought this DVD. Unlike some of the cover art I’ve seen online, my version of Bohachi came with a topless prostitute on the front. It may surprise you, but I was crossing my fingers that Bohachi wasn’t just straight up porn, and instead something closer to the sexploitation of Perfect Education 3 (Jin shi pei yu, xiang gang qing ye). Me thinking it was porn is probably what kept the DVD unopened until now. They say you shouldn’t shop for food when you’re hungry and I guess you shouldn’t shop for movies when you’re horny. I’ve also been fooled by vampire movies in the past that were softcore porn in disguise. I hate softcore porn. It’s not even “just the tip” and is barely dry humping. My criticism of softcore porn is both literal and metaphoric.

Under the umbrella of Asian sexploitation, the closest I’ll knowingly get to softcore porn is Perfect Education, and I prefer movies like Freeze Me (my first introduction to Japanese women with naturally large breasts). Freeze Me would have been a fine movie without the nudity, but the skin served the purpose of making the rape scenes more graphic and the heroine more sympathetic. To expand the cinematic scope a little further, when I think of Caligula I think of a movie that was full of nudity with no purpose. The aim of all that bare flesh was to demonstrate Roman decadence, but it came across as no more than an excuse for Playboy to make what it perceived to be a legitimate non-pornographic film. To be clear, I enjoy watching the human form on film, not necessarily in a “tasteful” way, and I think we’ll all agree that at times the less tasteful or tactful a thing is the more enjoyable it is. Caligula does not apply.

On the exploitation scale, Bohachi is a lot closer to the spoof Black Dynamite, but better executed. Bohachi’s execution reminds me of the scene from Tropic Thunder and the conversation between Kirk Lazarus and Tugg Speedman. Dynamite went full retard. In a spoof you never go full retard. If you put Dynamite on VHS and threw it in a discount bin with actual blacksploitation movies from the 1970s you might not be able to tell the difference, which is an art form in itself, and should be appreciated, but should also be recognized a failure when it comes to being an accessible and enjoyable movie.

Where Bohachi is successful in not going full retard is evident in my favorite scene from the whole movie, the fight scene between the nude prostitute bodyguards and an assassin. It was silly but artful (I smile just thinking about the choreographer and what rehearsals must have been like), and self aware in a way that made the first Austin Powers fun. Bohachi’s only flaw was the opium sex orgy scene near the end that seemed to drag on, ruined the pace and tone of the movie, and almost crossed the line into purposeless softcore. Thankfully, that nonsense ended right about when I started looking for the fast forward button. Even with this minor setback, Bohachi was still very enjoyable.

Part of me wants to look up other Teruo Ishii movies but I’ve been disappointed by Japanese directors in the past (Takashi Miike and Takeshi Kitano). My first inclination after finishing Bohachi was to look up 120 Days of Sodom instead (Salò o le 120 giornate di Sodoma), but the only version I found on the internet didn’t have English subtitles. I may be taking a trip up to Hastings in the near. It seems I’ve gotten my nude comedy fix and am on the prowl for something dark. I’m the exact opposite of the ronin in that I serve multiple masters.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EQ8wx15iHh4

On the Edge (Así del precipicio)

I don’t recall ever intentionally investigating Mexican cinema. I have a hard enough time dealing with Spanish cinema, which I think we’ll all agree is a rung or two above. The only Mexican film I remember watching prior to On the Edge is Y Tu Mamá También (the only memorable thing from Y Tu Mamá También is the sex scene). I’ll openly admit my own prejudice against what I may misinterpret as Mexican culture. I see a country’s art as a reflection of its culture, and there’s nothing that really interests me about anything having to do with Mexico, other than remembrance of the Alamo and The Battle of San Jacinto.

My prejudice starts with what I’ve seen of Mexican television. I live in Texas and was encouraged as a child to try to learn Spanish. Between elementary school and high school I took several years of Spanish. I don’t speak a lick of the language now, but that has more to do with the failings of the Texas education system and my distaste for the sound of bastardized Spanish. As part of my attempt at immersion, I watched countless hours of Mexican television. What I saw was bad acting, poor production, an insane emphasis on sex, and lots of dancing blondes with ridiculously large breasts.

The idea that any Mexican attempt at art completely lacks skill or sophistication has stuck with me. That negative impression has since been reinforced by the often horrendous acting by one of Mexico’s stars, Salma Hayek, and the pitiful directing of the inexplicably popular Guillermo del Toro and Robert Rodriguez.  My detractors will point to Penélope Cruz, Javier Bardem, Antonio Banderas, and Jordi Mollà  as paradigms of excellence in Mexican cinema. And I will happily point out that they are all Spanish.

While there is some great acting in On the Edge, it is also at times cartoonish in a way that makes Mexican television unwatchable. Often, I couldn’t tell if I was watching a bad comedy or a bad drama. The acting is constantly undermined. The end result is a movie that’s hard to take serious, which is unfortunate because On the Edge deals with the very serious topics of suicide, addiction, gender and sexual identity, divorce and death.  If you enjoy M. Night Shyamalan movies you might enjoy On the Edge. I don’t and didn’t.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7jP1_dwrrr4

 

I wonder how many people out there are going to a movie tonight or rented a flick to celebrate Valentine’s Day. I honestly don’t know what people do to celebrate, as I’ve only partaken in the festivities twice since being old enough to date. Like most holidays, I’ll be spending this one alone, which really doesn’t make it different than any other day, and I would argue that holidays are no different than any other day.

I’m trying to remember what I was doing this time last year and can’t recall, but it’s a safe bet I was working. I guess I should be thankful that having a heart pump has left this aspect of my life unchanged. Speaking of things staying the same, I am still just as ignorant as to the status of my heart regeneration. Some foolishness at UT Southwestern has me waiting another month for the echocardiogram. At my last visit they did do an EKG to try to figure out if an irregular heartbeat was causing what I’ve been feeling in my chest. Just like my morning deuce, my beat was regular.

Adrift (À Deriva)

So, apparently my favorite French actor, Vincent Cassel (it’s a shame most Americans only know him from the Ocean’s movies), speaks Portuguese. I was actually proud of myself that I could tell it was Brazilian Portuguese, something I would have known beforehand if I looked at the back of the DVD cover. I’ve been looking for a Brazilian Portuguese movie to watch to help with learning the language, especially the slang, and I’ve had this thing sitting there in plastic for who knows how long. According to his biography on IMDb, Cassel speaks English, Portuguese, and Italian, and learned conversational Russian for Eastern Promises. Don’t you feel dumb right now?  I know I do. While I’m TRYING to learn French, Japanese, Brazilian Portuguese and German he’s actually DOING it. Another gem on IMDb is Cassel’s marriage to Monica Bellucci, which makes revisiting Irréversible more interesting. By the way, Bellucci also speaks at least French, Italian and English.

*****SPOILERS*****

What is it about me and watching coming of age/dissolution of a marriage movies recently (Blue Valentine, Submarine)? Adrift also reminds me a little of Remember Me, My Love (Ricordati di me), which only coincidentally stars Bellucci. During the car crash scene I actually thought Adrift was taking a page from Remember Me, but I think the drifting scene in the end was the perfect cap. If it was an American film they would have stayed together for the kids (I don’t understand why anyone considers this the best option) and Cassel would have found his daughter just in time to preserve her virginity/innocence (Taken). What causes a couple to separate has to be as mysterious as what brought them together in the first place, and the way Hollywood tries to tie bows on something so obviously messy is…you already know what I’m going to say. 

Camilla Belle, who plays Cassel’s lover, has a Brazilian mother and an American father.   I think Belle would make a great subject for a painting but there’s something odd/off-putting about her. She fits in movies like 10,000 BC, where her bushier eyebrows make more sense, or as Snow White, who you don’t imagine plucking her eyebrows. Kristen Stewart was inexplicably cast as Snow White for Snow White and the Huntsman (skin as white as snow and hair as black as ebony?), while Lily Collins was more appropriately cast as her in the soon-to-be-shit film Mirror Mirror. The point of all of this is that I wouldn’t cast Belle as Cassel’s lover, especially not if she’s supposed to typify an American homewrecker vacationing abroad.

In my last post for Water Lilies I brought up young female sexuality and how that translates to film.  Adrift follows what I was saying about Europeans tending to cast more age appropriate actresses for teen roles. Laura Neiva, 16 at the time, plays a 14 year old who goes through a sexual maturation process, which is made all the more confusing by watching her parents’ marriage deteriorate, and who also, presumably, loses her virginity to a man old enough to bartend. Like with Belle, I couldn’t stop looking at Neiva and finding something odd about her appearance. This stick of a girl, out of nowhere, had the nicest ass in the entire film (I know she’s Brazilian, but don’t you have to do a bunch of squats, lunges and elliptical machining to get it to pop like that?). I wasn’t the only one who noticed, as evidenced by the camera following Neiva’s hindquarters every time she was walking on the beach in a bikini. Maybe part of the reason I found Belle’s casting so weird is because the underaged Neiva exuded sexuality while Belle didn’t even slow drip anything resembling sex. I wonder if that was intentional by the director. There were, after all, some weird father/daughter dynamic undertones going on (I could get on a whole other thing about the daughter being jealous of the lover as a sexual rival, but I won’t).

It’s hard to believe that one of the best foreign movies I’ve ever seen was just $3.99 on a clearance rack at Hastings, while Best Buy sells shit like the Real Steel Blue-ray for $24.99. I watched about half an hour of Real Crap with my friend’s kid, Chuckles, yesterday. I feel bad for the cinema youth of America (and also Wolverine, the X-Men franchise, and Hugh Jackman’s career).

The pictures at the end of Adrift were a nice touch.

http://www.traileraddict.com/trailer/adrift/international-trailer               

On a side note, I have my monthly appointment tomorrow and they’re doing an echo to see if there’s any regeneration.  I’ve actually felt my heart beat through my chest and neck in the past few weeks, which I hope is a good sign, and not me having mini heart attacks/strokes.

Wish me luck.